


Strangers When We Met

by BleedingInk



Series: Hello Stranger [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Hell's politics, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kid Fic, Meg Masters in a Wheelchair, Megstiel Child, Minor Character Death, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Motherhood, season 14 never happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-02-16 15:12:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 97,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18694006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingInk/pseuds/BleedingInk
Summary: With her memories restored and pregnant with Castiel's child, Meg struggles to find her place in a world that she never thought she'd come back to. She has some ideas as to where she might belong, though: Hell's Throne, for starters.However, after her daughter is born, the world is plunged into chaos: Michael wants her for his experiments, Sam thinks she might be the key to bringing Dean back and an old threat emerges from the very depths of her kingdom. To protect Eris, Meg might need to confront some truths about herself that she'd forgotten about.[Updating Tuesdays and Fridays]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the third and final part of my Hello, Stranger series. You can read it individually, but you're going to have a better idea of the timeline we're in if you read the previous works in the series. Anyway, hope you enjoy it!

Hell was different.

Meg could taste it in the air around her, she could feel it deep in her bones. The moment Talbot and her entered it, she knew that it was different.

When it was her home (if that hot place made of brimstone and smoke and fire could be called a home), when Azazel ruled the place, the air was heavy with screams and pleads for mercy from all the tortured souls that had ended there. Back then it had looked like endless rows of sinners hanging from meat hooks, rack upon rack of souls roasting in their own juices. The smell of blood and rotten meat was everywhere.

It was hard to describe hell as a “place”, because just like Heaven, it was personalized for each soul. Lucifer couldn’t really create anything, just make twisted versions of it, just as demons were deformed versions of the human soul.

“Hell is what you make of it, my child,” Azazel had told her soon after she had been reborn to the darkness. “Of course, some demons have the chance to… make others see things their way.”

“Like you, father?”

His smile of sharp blackened teeth had almost shone in the dim light.

“Yes. Being King has its perks.”

When she was not under Azazel’s influence, Hell had always looked to Meg like an extension of barren land and molted rock, a desert where nothing could ever grow and the sun would never set, so it was in a perpetual state of twilight, as if the sky itself had been set on fire. The immensity of it had always unsettled her.

There were trees there. Meg figured she must have liked trees when she was human, because there had always been trees in her Hellscape. Not live trees, of course, but dead ones, as black and barren as everything else, with long, twisted branches raising up towards the orange and red above. Souls had hanged from them like some sort of sinister fruit or been melted against the trunk, screaming in agony as they waited for their turn on the rack.

Now there were no souls. The trees were naked an abandoned, and the heated air was silent.

“Where is everybody?” she asked.

Talbot simply shrugged her shoulders.

Neither of them had discarded their meatsuits upon entering Hell. Some demons did, especially the older ones, taking pride in their true forms, the mangled remained of their souls that wasn’t smoke and illusions in that place. In a way, it was ironic that Lucifer was called “the Father of Lies”. Meg was of the opinion that Hell was perhaps the place where souls revealed their truest selves in all their ugliness and pettiness.

She suspected that Talbot not shaving off the blonde girl she was using more out of sense of practicality than anything else. It must have been a hassle for crossroads demons to find new hosts every time they were invoked. She hoped Talbot suspected that she wasn’t discarding her meatsuit for the same reason. Her hand wandered absentmindedly over her stomach. She didn’t feel anything, none of the heaviness and dizziness that had invaded her when she was topside. Then again, demons were stronger in Hell.

“So how exactly are you planning to take over Hell, your Highness?” Talbot asked her. Her posh accent made it sound even more sarcastic.

Of course, she was only going along with this because she knew Meg kept an angel blade carefully tucked inside of her jacket’s sleeve.

Meg couldn’t blame her for not believing her. If she was as young as she suspected, then she probably had been put to work under Crowley’s regime. She hadn’t met the true leaders of the past, the Princes, or even Lilith.

A strange sense of loss invaded her. Demons couldn’t truly form bonds like friendship or family, or at least they weren’t supposed to. But Azazel and Tom, whom she’d called brother once upon a time, had been it for her for a time. Even Alastair or Abaddon or…

She stopped thinking about them and directed her chair to move forwards. Of course, down there she didn’t need to touch the controller or worry she might run out of battery. It just did what she wanted it to, because this was _her_ Hellscape.

Talbot followed her closely, not walking too fast in order not to surpass her. Meg noticed the way she glanced at her, at her wheels, with a barely contained curiosity. So, perhaps there was enough of human left in her for that.

“Crowley killed me,” Meg said out loud.

Talbot startled, but her face immediately returned to the neutral expression she had before.

“The King?” She rolled her eyes. “Well, former King, I guess.”

“Yes.” Meg was happy to find someone who shared her despise for that smarmy dick. “I refused to bend the knee for him. He didn’t like that. That’s the short of it, anyway.”

“Alright.” Talbot sounded skeptic once again. “But if you were killed, how come you’re here?”

“That’s neither here nor there,” Meg said, evasive, because she wasn’t about to disclose what Castiel had done to bring her back. She was sure there would be loyalist trying something of the sort, something that could end up with her having to deal with unwanted competition. “What matters is I’m back. And I don’t know how long it will take me to heal or if I’ll be able to heal at all.”

“You could smoke out of that body.”

“Already tried. Didn’t stick.”

And even if it had… well, there were other reasons she needed to keep the girl from Cheboygan. At least for the foreseeable future.

“You don’t seem particularly bothered by it.”

Meg stopped the chair. They were atop of a cliff, a vantage point from where she could behold Hell’s immensity and yes, its emptiness. Wherever the souls and demons had gone, she was going to have to round them up and put them into place once she’d seized the throne.

But first things first.

She closed her eyes.

It was as simple as thinking about it. When she opened them again, she was down the cliff and smiling up at Talbot.

“Why would I be bothered?” she asked. “I have some other tricks up my sleeve.”

Talbot disappeared and appeared again by Meg’s side.

“Cheeky,” she said, with a beam that disappeared almost as fast as it’d bloomed.

Meg was pleased to see it, though. It meant that Talbot liked her. Good. Many demons had liked Azazel as well and he had reigned for millennia. It could only be a good sign for her.

She set her chair to roll forwards.

“Tell me what happened here,” she asked. “The place has really gone to… well, you know what I mean.”

This time, the beam on Talbot’s lips remained there a little longer.

“Well, it’s a long story.”

“We have a long walk. Figure of speech.”

Talbot rewarded her with a chuckle.

“Where are we going, exactly?”

“The throne room,” Meg explained. “It sits in the middle of Hell, atop of Lucifer’s Cage. There are some rules about who gets to claim it and how, but just being there can give us a general idea of what’s going on here.”

Talbot eyed her suspiciously and Meg wondered if she’d spoken in plural way too soon. She liked Talbot, because she had been the only one with enough balls to answer the invocation, but if she became a liability… well, Meg just hoped she didn’t.

“If you say so,” Talbot conceded. “To be honest with you, I have no idea where we are. I’ve never been to this part of Hell before. I didn’t even know trees could grow here.”

So she was seeing Meg’s Hellscape.

That pleased her. It was good to know that despite it all, she was still more powerful than a run-of-the-mill crossroads demon. She knew it, but with everything that’d happened to her…

Well, for the first time in a very long time, Meg could say with utmost honesty that she was glad to be home.

They lost the notion of time as they kept moving through the barren land. Talbot regaled her with the tale of the last days of Crowley’s reign and what’d come after it. It was a long and depressing tale of decadence and incompetence and Meg was delighted. She knew in general what had gone down thanks to Castiel and Rowena catching her up, but Talbot was able to provide her with details, some of which didn’t surprise her but were satisfactory to hear anyway (like how Crowley hadn’t lasted two centuries without a revolt in his hands) and some that were surprising to hear, like Asmodeous brief stint at running Hell.

“I really wasn’t in for much of the action,” Talbot explained. “I just bought the souls and put the contracts away. And a good thing too, because everybody who tried to follow Asmodeous ended up dead.”

“I never knew him,” Meg confessed. “But judging by the way my father spoke of him, I’m not really surprised it didn’t work out for him.”

“Your father?”

“Azazel,” Meg said. “He chose me. He created me to serve his master plan. To release Lucifer and bring on the Apocalypse.”

“Didn’t work out all the great for him, huh?”

Meg glanced at her and Talbot immediately fell to her knees, clawing at her throat as she choked out cough after cough. She wouldn’t die for the lack of air, but breathing was a reflex most demons, especially new ones, hadn’t been able to shake off. It was meant to scare her more than anything, but Meg wanted her to remember she could just as easily damage her in the most creative ways.

“Don’t speak ill of our dearly departed,” she told her. “Am I clear, Talbot?”

Talbot nodded, or it could have been just a desperate spasm. Whatever the case, Meg released her kinetic grasp on her throat. She kept moving without looking back. For a second, she thought she might have made a mistake and that Talbot would either run away or try to find another demon to sell her out.

She did neither of those things. A few seconds later, she was trotting behind Meg’s chair as they quietly travelled through the Hellscape. It was changing once again: the trees now grew among what could pass as a city in ruins, complete with a badly kept road that Meg’s chair could more easily ride on.

“I’m not blinded by devotion, if that’s what you think,” Meg continued saying. “My father made plenty of mistakes that lead to his defeat and his demise. But he was a king everyone respected. He kept things orderly.”

She didn’t know why she was telling all of this to Talbot. She wasn’t one of the old guard, she couldn’t understand what Hell was like when Azazel was in charge: all the schemes and the machinations. All the murders, the blood, the torture. Everything was worth it, for they were serving a cause bigger than any of them. Crowley was an opportunist, a salesman that was more interested in closing his deals than in governing. Abaddon was a warmonger. Every single one of them had failed for the same simple reason.

They had all underestimated Sam and Dean Winchester.

Well, she wasn’t going to make that mistake. It wasn’t that she was suddenly going to be all chummy with them, but openly defying them or trying to get on their way was guaranteed to end up with the pointy end of their demon killing knife stuck in her throat.

She gently placed her fingers over her stomach. No. She had something that she needed to defend, something rare and powerful. She didn’t know why she felt so protective of that little thing growing inside of her, except that it belonged to her. And to Castiel. They’d created it together and it was extraordinary and impossible.

And if being polite to the two sixpenny hunters was the only way to make sure it would grow and prosper, then she could do polite.

But it didn’t hurt having all the hordes of Hell backing her up as well.

The Throne Room towered above them. It was ruinous and dark, like everything around them, its dark walls like molten rock gave the impression that the entire building was one breeze away from collapsing. There were stairs at the entrance, leading up to its iron doors. Meg rolled her eyes and focused on them, willing them to disappear, willing to find a way inside it.

The ground they were standing on shook. Talbot grabbed unto the chair for balance as the stairs crumbled, replaced by a tableland that allowed Meg to easily rolled towards the stairs. She smirked to herself. Hell recognized her as the most powerful demon around. Also a good sign. This would be easier than she thought.

She planted her hands on the doors and they swung open for her without resistance.

Silence and at least a dozen curious stares met her on the other side.

“Am I late?” Meg asked, with a smile.

No one answered her. The handful of demons present there had chosen meatsuits from all genders, ages and races. Some of them were dressed in casual clothes, some others had chosen more professional looking suites or dresses. She identified them easily as more crossroads demons, Talbot’s kind.

They all seemed… so young. So inexperienced compared to the ages she’d seen passed. None of them recognized her, of course, but as she rolled inside, she could sense the reverence and sudden fear that they were experience.

All except for one of them.

He was standing near the other end of the room, wearing a white middle-aged man with salt and pepper in his hair. His eyes went black as they met up with hers, and Meg could easily perceive the face underneath.

She knew him. He was old, though not as old as hers. But perhaps one of the oldest demons still kicking around. Maybe the only one left that could actually put up a fight against her.

Which meant the other way around was truth, of course.

“Kipling,” she greeted him with a smile.

“You!” he replied. There was surprise in his voice as he stepped away. “I thought you were dead.”

“I was. I got better,” Meg replied with a shrug. “But is that anyway to welcome me home?”

Kipling eyed her with suspicion, and then eyed the empty throne behind him. It soon became clear why he and his ragtag group of minor demons had gone there.

He recovered from his astonishment quickly enough.

“Well, of course not,” he said. He walked up to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “And you’re just in time for my coronation.”

Meg raised an eyebrow, considering her options. The angel blade was still inside of her sleeve and she could easily slip it out and be done with it all.

On the other hand, she’d prefer to avoid it, if it was possible. There were so little powerful demons she could trust left. In fact, Kipling might have been the only one.

She chuckled instead.

“I’m afraid that we have ourselves a little conflict of interest, then,” she replied.

Kipling stopped touching her and stepped backwards.

“You? The Queen of Hell?” he asked. Meg definitely didn’t like the dismissive tone in his voice.

“And why not? I served under Azazel. I apprenticed under Alistair…”

“They’re all old news, honey,” Kipling replied. “If you ask me, it’s their fault there’s a power vacuum and that Hell is in disarray in the first place. They bet everything on Lucifer and they lost. No. It’s time for a new regime.”

He took a step towards the throne, but couldn’t go any further. Meg didn’t even need her full power to stop him in his tracks. Kipling should’ve considered her a courtesy towards him that he wasn’t suddenly wriggling on the floor in agonizing pain, but he’d always been an arrogant bastard that bit more than he could chew.

He turned towards her very slowly.

“But of course, someone as… experienced as you could have some really valuable advice to offer to the new king,” he said. “I would very much appreciate to hear all of your suggestions.”

Did he really think he could placate her by giving her just an inch of what she truly wanted?

“No,” Meg said, firmly.

Kipling shuffled in his place. Apparently, he was as reluctant to kill her as she was him.

“I don’t want to fight you,” he admitted in the end. “I know exactly how powerful you are and I respect that. So let me make you an offer: you can be Queen… as long as I’m your King. We’ll rule together, as equals, and nothing will stop us.”

“Tempting,” Meg said. “No.”

The other demons, Talbot included, had backed down until their meatsuits were cowering against the walls. They probably knew what it was coming.

“You don’t trust that I will keep the spirit of our partnership?” Kipling asked, raising an eyebrow.

“You must think I’m a complete idiot.”

Meg regretted it, but she couldn’t let Kipling live. If she did, he was never going to stop trying to find ways to bring her down. And she wasn’t Crowley, she wasn’t going to torture him into oblivion, giving him plenty of time to scheme or escape. She was going to end him, right then and there, before he had the chance to do the same thing with her.

“I think death left you trapped in a broken girl and perhaps you’re not as fit for the throne as you believe,” Kipling replied, eyeing her wheelchair. “Think it over, sweetheart. It’s the best offer you’re going to get.”

“I didn’t come here for an offer, Kip,” Meg replied. “I want the throne. I want Hell.”

“Why?” Kipling rolled his eyes. “You and that… brother of yours. You always thought that you were better than us because you were Azazel’s attack dogs. You couldn’t wait to get topside. Why do you suddenly care about Hell when you were so willing to leave the rest of us behind to rot in it?”

There was truth in his words, of course, even if the demons listening to them were too young to know it. Hell was Hell for demons too, as well, and she’d enjoyed many benefits when she served Azazel. She’d lost them just as quickly as soon as she’d failed, but she wasn’t about to tell him that.

She threw her head back and barked out a laugh.

“Darling, have you considered maybe you were consistently left out of the big plans because you were just never that important?”

That managed to enrage him.

Kip raised his hand and sent a wave of energy Meg’s way, pushing her chair back several inches before she managed to stabilize herself. When she looked back up, Kip was charging towards her, his eyes black and his face contorted with fury. She moved out of the way just in time, but he still reached out and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her out of the chair and pushing her down to the floor.

Meg landed face first, a hand wrapped protectively around her stomach as Kip’s boot descended to kick her right in her face, her ribs, over and over again, punctuating his words as he did so:

“You… are nothing… but a spoiled… little girl!” he spat at her. “You have… no idea… who I am!”

Meg dragged herself away a little, spitting blood, but Kip grabbed her by the ankle and pulled her back. He sat on top of her, his weight pressing her down cruelly against the hard stone floor. His fist flew to her face, hard enough to knock her teeth together. She bit her tongue and tasted her own rotten blood, as she shook her arm slightly.

“I rode with Genghis Khan! I burned half of the world!” Kip shouted. He grabbed her by the shirt, pulling her up so her face was closer to his. “I am six thousand years old!”

Meg spat out a ball of saliva and blood on his shirt.

“Impressive.”

In a fluid movement, she raised her hand upwards.

The tip of Castiel’s angel blade sank straight through Kip’s throat. His eyes opened wide in surprise as he choked back a scream, his veins glowing orange for just a second.

“I’m older though,” Meg said calmly.

She pulled the blade back. Kipling’s body fell to the side with a thud. Meg pushed it away and sat up, the blade in one hand and her power concentrating in the other.

But none of the demons Kip had brought with him to the Throne Room seemed interested in defying her. They all simply stared at her, some of them hunching over as if that would make them seem shorter and less threatening from the position Meg was in.

Meg coughed up some more blood and touched her stomach. She had no way to tell what was happening to the little mysterious life growing inside of her, but this wasn’t the moment to worry about it.

She wasn’t going to give into the indignity of dragging herself up to the throne, so first she propped herself back up on her chair. The other demons moved to the side, clearing the way for her.

Meg stared at the platform the throne was on and decided she didn’t care for those steps. Perhaps it was better to look at her subjects from a height, but they were going to be hassle in the long run. The room tremble and shook, some debris and dust falling from the ceiling, as the platform sank on the ground. She drove her chair towards it and with one single movement, she moved to sit on it, crossing her legs and placing her hands on the armrest.

She didn’t expect it the sudden rush of electricity, of pure power that went through her. It invaded every inch of her body, every inch of her twisted and mangled soul and burned inside her like a fire, but there was no pain in the sensation. Just the sudden feeling that she was expanding, growing. She shuddered as Hell itself adjusted to her, to her very whim, as it revealed its secrets, its geography, its form, all of it. She could hear the screams of the souls, the hounds howling in the distance, every single word whispered and uttered in her domain.

Once again, she threw her head back and laughed, sincerely, joyously, this time. She hadn’t thought there was anything to the title of ruler of hell.

She had been wrong, obviously.

She stared down at the weaklings in front of her. They weren’t a court or an army in any sense of the word, but they would do for a start.

“Well?” she demanded.

Talbot was the first one to understand what she meant. She was British, after all. She stepped forwards until she was standing in front of the throne and once there, she went down on one knee, bowing herself to Meg respectfully.

One by one, the other demons followed her lead.

“Good,” Meg said, smirking with satisfaction. “Didn’t want to waste any more time on nonsense. We need to put this place back in order. We’ll be capturing the souls that have been on the run for too long, we’ll be training new torturers and the crossroads demons are going to get back into taking deals, right away. We need to protect ourselves, because there’s a storm brewing topside and I’ll be damn if I let it blow us away.”

“Yes, your Majesty,” Talbot answered, humbly. “If I may ask you a question?”

Meg gestured for her to go ahead.

“What are we meant to call you?”

Meg chuckled to herself. Of course, now Kip was dead, none of them _knew_. They had no idea who she really was.

In a way, it was better that way. It meant none of them could have any power over her.

“Meg will do. Now, let’s get to work.”


	2. Chapter 2

The work was slow, but eminently satisfying. Hell was big enough that it took a while to hunt down the souls that had run from its punishments taking advantage of the disarray, but they rounded them all up in the end.

“I have done nothing wrong!” they screamed over and over while Meg’s demons dragged them up to the dead trees surrounded the castle and hooked them up to the branches. “I don’t deserve to be here! Please, stop!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Meg said, rolling her eyes every time. “That’s what everyone says.”

The job was made much easier as the rumor expanded that there was a new sheriff in town and the demons that had fucked off to the edges of Hell to do whatever came back, swearing their loyalty to her and dragging some souls they’d found on the way. Meg took them in every time and evaluated them. She was looking for very specific traits.

“The psychopaths, the serial killers, the ones who are a little too happy with wreaking havoc, we need those working the racks,” she told Talbot as she followed her around what Meg had come to call “her garden”. The souls hanging from the branches cried and howled as she walked past them. “I don’t want the Nazis, though. They tend to get uppity. Do you think we should build dungeons for the ones we’re never going to let off the rack?”

“I think that’s a marvel idea, your Majesty.”

She doubted she was going to find someone like Alastair any time soon. The man was Picasso with a blade: not only did he enjoy torturing others immensely, he had the creativity to come up with new, wonderful ways to inflict pain. He was beyond the mere cutting and carving.

But with time and a little patience, a new master torturer was bound to emerge. In the meantime, she took up that role herself.

“No, no, no,” she explained a demon named Leon after he’d carved up at least three people without managing to break them. “You need to start small and then escalate. Go for the teeth, for the fingers. If you bring up the big guns at the first try, what’s going to be left for later?” She handed him a pair of tweezers. “Here. Pull off all of his fingernails.”

Leon smiled crookedly and got to work as the man hanging in front of him began screaming again.

The people who had got there on deals were better for the psychological torture aspect of things.

“I never knew you could use telepathy like that,” Talbot said, stepping outside of Meg’s newly built dungeons. Her meatsuit changed: her hair went from brown to blonde again as she rolled down her bloodstain sleeves.

“It’s easier here than topside,” Meg commented as she rolled towards the next cell. “Hell is where we are at our most powerful, since there aren’t quite so many limitations.”

Talbot drank up every word she said as if it was the gospel. It was interesting to see just how little these new demons knew about their powers and what they could do with them. Interesting, and sad. They had no idea the havoc they could wreak, the way they could manipulate reality around those who were damned.

They had a lot to learn, certainly. Meg started selecting her entourage between those who wanted to grow in power, but more important, those who wanted to find out exactly what being a demon was about. She didn’t expect loyalty from them, it would’ve been naïve to do so. But she knew that if she gave them enough to learn, enough to cling to, they would at least think of her as someone they didn’t want to mess with for their own sake. For Hell’s sake.

And of course, it helped to make them a present now and them.

One afternoon, while they were walking through the garden (that resembled more and more a kind of twisted woods with each passing day) and taking notes of the state of the different souls, Talbot halted. It was so sudden it took Meg a few seconds to realize she was rolling alone and turn her chair around.

“Talbot?”

She stood silently, her face turned up at a branch. A fat man hanged from there, naked and with some wounds in what resembled his flesh, but not particularly damaged. He had his eyes closed and his lips tightened, as if he was trying to sleep despite that being impossible in Hell. They were to stay awake for every second of the nightmare they had to live.

“What is it?” Meg asked Talbot, parking her chair next to her.

“I know him,” Talbot said. She narrowed her eyes, as if she was trying to remember something. “Why do I know him?”

“Well, it’s not strange to find some acquaintances down here,” Meg said, shrugging.

“No. It’s more than that,” Talbot said. She approached the man, as if to watch him closely. “I think…”

She made a pause, her eyes growing wide.

It wasn’t strange. Some demons, the older ones, had no idea who they’d been in life or what they’d been. Forgetting their humanity was a necessary step into becoming what they were. These new batch of demons, however, had been made in a rush and imperfectly, so it wasn’t that strange that they still could recall some of their human experiences.

Meg didn’t try to rush Talbot while she inspected the man’s face.

“I think he was my father,” Talbot concluded after a moment.

As if those were the words that he was waiting for, the fat man opened his eyes and settled them on her. He was sweating, a panicked expression on his face. He probably didn’t recognize her, not with how much she’d changed, but he’d been there long enough that any Hail Mary to get his situation to improve would work.

“Bela!” he called out. He spoke with the same posh accent as Talbot’s. “Bela, is it… is it really you?”

Talbot stepped away, her eyes growing blood red as she clenched her jaw with fury.

“Yes,” she confirmed. “He was my father.”

She spat out the last word as if it was the worst insult she could think of.

“Sweetheart, please,” the man cried out. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. For everything. I didn’t… I’m sorry. Please, love, get me out of here.”

Meg watched Talbot closely, watched the snarl of disgust that appeared on her face.

“Leon,” she called.

Leon and a couple more demons that were always around him appeared immediately.

“Take the gentleman down,” Meg indicated.

“Oh, thank you,” the man cried out as they unlocked his shackles. He fell to the ground like a formless blob, but Leon and the others picked him up by the arms. “Thank you. It’s been… it’s been so long. My wife… she should be here somewhere as well. Please, can you…?”

Talbot looked away, as if she was about to vomit.

“Of course. Guys, go pick this good man’s wife and take them to one of the… private chambers,” Meg instructed them. “Talbot, come with me.”

Talbot seemed more than happy to walk away from the man’s pathetic sobbing and platitudes. They moved between the trees until they found a relatively secluded area.

“You know we’re short on demons,” she told her. “I can’t make exceptions. And this guy seems like he’s been here long enough that we could make him the offer to get down from the rack.”

“Oh, I bet the bastard would love that,” Talbot said, with a snicker. A second later, she regained her usual composure. “I mean, I am aware of what you’re trying to do, your Majesty. And I don’t intend to tell you how to rule.”

“Good, because the second you did, you’d be back to sucking tongues with morons desperate enough to sell their souls topside.”

“If you consider that is the best use to my abilities, of course, I’d be happy to follow your orders.”

She was being too serviceable, too accepting of Meg’s decision for her to believe she was sincere.

“What did he do?” she asked Talbot, point blank. The other demon crossed her arms and looked down at the floor. “Hey,” Meg said, snapping her fingers to call attention to her. “What did he do to you?”

Talbot remained stubbornly silent.

And perhaps that was exactly what she needed to do for Meg to understand. This was no mere family feud, no mere misunderstanding. Her father had done something horrible enough to deserve to land in Hell. And Talbot clearly preferred not to talk about it.

“Come with me,” Meg instructed her.

She didn’t need anyone to tell her where everything in Hell was. She had an instinctive knowledge of it, like an explorer that could tell exactly where the north was after looking up at the sky for a few seconds. She just needed to think of what she wanted to find, and she instantly knew where to go. She knew where every demon and every soul was, and if she looked a little deeper into them, she could see past their lies and begging and find out exactly what they’d done to end up there. If it had been a deal or if they’d been witches or if they’d just been horrible people in life.

Talbot’s father definitely belonged in that third category. After taking a long, hard look at him in the cell where Leon had installed him, Meg made her decision.

“You know how this works, right?” she said, holding a blade up.

The man swallowed loudly, nervously. He’d definitely been tortured before, even if his process hadn’t been quite complete and Hell had gone into disarray before he could pick up the blade himself. He seemed to remember what would happen if he turned down the offer, though.

“Please, please,” he cried out as he pulled slightly from the shackles that hanged from the ceiling. “I can’t… I can’t go through all of that again. I’ll do whatever you want me to do.”

Talbot made a sound that could have been anything from a cough to a dismissive laugh.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Meg said, rolling her eyes at him. “Talbot.”

Talbot took a step forwards. Her eyes were slightly wider, as if she was surprised and wondering what Meg was up to. She handed her the knife.

“Knock yourself out.”

She rolled the chair away in the stunned silence that followed her declaration. The man started screaming even before Meg closed the door of his cell behind her, probably even before Talbot had begun carving into him.

It took several hours for Talbot to come to the Throne Room to talk to her again.

“Make sure all the Hellhounds are accounted for,” she told Esme, another of the demons that had come to kneel with her first. Once she was out, Meg turned to look at Talbot. Her clothes and sleeves were stained with red. “Did you have fun?”

“I don’t know if fun is the way I’d put it,” Talbot replied, approaching the throne. She looked around, but they were the only ones there. She still moved closer, as if she wanted to make extra sure that no one was going to hear what she was about to ask. “Why did you let me do that?”

“Well, it seemed like it was going to be a bit of an issue for you if I didn’t,” Meg replied. “Plus, I know I’m literally the Queen of Hell, but I’m no fan of pedophiles.”

Her hands rested on her stomach. The small bulge there had begun growing with the passing weeks, but it was still small enough that it wasn’t noticeable unless someone cared to stare at her long enough. Talbot, on her part, was examining her face closely.

“Are you still going to make him the offer?”

Meg tilted her head, as if she was thinking about it.

“Well, I’ll leave that up to you,” she said in the end with a shrug.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re in charge of torturing him from now on, and your momsie too, if we ever find her in the garden,” Meg told her. “So, you’ll decide when they’ve suffered enough to take up the blade.”

Talbot raised her head, surprised, but clearly pleased at that development.

“And if I decide their suffering is never going to be enough?”

Meg shrugged once again.

“Then they never come off the rack.”

It was honestly a small sacrifice to make. There were plenty of other souls to turn into demons and they still had plenty of deals that Crowley had closed coming up in the next couple of years (that smarmy dick was good for something after all), so it wasn’t like losing that one guy was going to affect Meg’s numbers overall.

But it must have meant a lot to Talbot, because from then on, she became almost indispensable. She took up to oversee the deals and to walk next to Meg as she inspected the new Hellhound litters. She also, from time to time, came up to Meg with a new soul or a new demon and suggestions for what they were good at. Soon, Meg was the proud owner of a new squad of torturers, all ready to restore Hell to its former numbers, all thanks to Talbot’s efforts.

She was also the first one to notice that Meg was pregnant.

“I didn’t know that was possible,” she commented one day.

Meg knew exactly what she meant, but she still didn’t bother to look at Talbot for another moment.

“What is that?” she asked, picking up a Hellhound pup by the skin of the neck. The little beast stared at her with its three red eyes and showed her its long, sharp teeth, growling in a manner that was not quite threatening yet, but would be once it had the opportunity to grow a little.

“To… have a child,” Talbot explained. “I thought once we took over a body, especially if the body was dead before we did…”

Meg placed the pup on her lap, holding it between her hands as it squirmed and tried to bite her hands.

“You can, with the right rituals,” Meg said. “I’m breeding a Cambion.”

It was the lie she’d been planning on telling all along when someone asked. But by the confusion on Talbot’s face, she might as well have told her she had a small dragon growing inside of her. Seriously, had no one taught them anything?

“A half-demon child,” Meg explained. “They’re hard to make, but they’re very powerful. They could go against an angel, if necessary. And if what I’ve seen topside is still happening when I get back, then it’ll be necessary.”

“You’re breeding a soldier,” Talbot said. It sounded like she disapproved.

“This child will be our future, Talbot,” Meg replied. “The only way Hell is going to survive Michael’s oncoming attack. Without it, our very existence is going to be doomed.”

Talbot still looked like she wasn’t convinced, but she had the good sense of nodding in silence and dropping the issue.

Meg didn’t tell her it was actually the other way around. She had taken the throne and she was reforming Hell because that was the only way to keep their child safe. Castiel was a fugitive of heaven and all its angels would be wanting to end her life as soon as they’d found out the child existed. He would die protecting the kid, Meg was certain, because she would too. But they only had one life to give each. With Hell backing her, it would be easier to fight, easier to keep her safe.

If it hadn’t been for her pregnancy, she would’ve stayed topside with Castiel. She avoided thinking of him as much as she could, because when she did, she kept realizing how much she missed him. To him, she wouldn’t have been gone that long, but in Hell the weeks started turning into months and her body began stretching and changing, making place for the mysterious creature they’d created together.

She didn’t need to sleep there, so she had no other visions of their child. She didn’t need to, though, to know that she was going to be something unlike what anyone had ever seen or heard of before. She felt her power every time she settled a hand on her stomach, a will as small and as pure as that of a little animal that was barely aware of its own existence.

“All of this is for you,” Meg muttered when she was alone sometimes, her legs crossed over her chair as she stared at the Hellscape that stretched far and wide over the horizon. The child inside her sometimes moved and kicked, as if she wanted to indicate that she was listening, paying attention to Meg’s words. Or maybe that was what Meg wanted to think. “Do you understand? Everything I do is so you will be safe, little one.”

And that was exactly why she knew the child couldn’t be born there.

When she was around five months old, Talbot started insisting she needed to see a doctor.

“What for?” Meg asked, not knowing whether to be amused or insulted by the suggestion. “I know it’s fine.”

“How can you know?” Talbot asked, narrowing her eyes. “You’ve been working nonstop all these months. You haven’t eaten or taken vitamins or any of the things that a baby would need.”

“This is no ordinary baby,” Meg reminded her. But she sighed. “Fine. If it’ll make you happy, go kidnap a doctor and bring it here.”

Talbot went above and beyond that duty. A few hours later, she presented herself to Meg’s private chambers along with a terrified obstetrician who has half-convinced he was having a nightmare and an ultrasound equipment. Meg endured patiently as the man prodded her with trembling hands first and then with his stupid instruments. It took a moment to get a clear view in the monitor, as it apparently didn’t agree with Hell’s atmosphere or its frequency, whatever it was.

“It’s… I think it’s… a girl,” the doctor said, after swallowing several times. “That’s the umbilical cord and that’s… another… umbilical cord?” he asked, frowning a little.

Meg raised her head to look at the monitor and an involuntary laughter ascended to her throat. The baby was facing towards her, cocoon safely inside of her, and she looked normal… for the most part.

There were two small protuberances on each side of her forehead, and a long apendix that tangled around her little leg.

“That’d be her tail.”

She got Talbot to take the doctor back to the hospital before he could tell them if the child also had wings. She wasn't sure she could explain that away to the other demons.

“So, it’ll be like a prince?” Leon asked, frowning. He’d taken the meatsuit of a man in his thirties with very thick eyebrows and a very ugly scar across his face. Meg was thinking of putting him at the gates to welcome any and all new souls that arrived, just to give them a taste of what they were going to have to face in the near future.

“Princess, in any case. But since I am not planning on dying in the near future, you wouldn’t need to worry too much about the line of succession,” she told him, rolling her eyes. Him, Talbot and three other demons that Meg had come to trust as a council of sorts were sitting around a table she’d conjured up for such occasions. “I do expect you, however, to treat her with respect. She might be your commander in a battle in the near future.”

She didn’t miss out on the way they’d exchanged looks. They obviously weren’t all on board with the idea of following what right now was nothing but a small baby inside of her. Meg stared them down one by one, wondering who would be the one stupid enough to contradict her.

It was Guy. He was another crossroads demons that Meg had rescued from a cell in Crowley’s old private prison. He had no love for the former king and Meg appreciated that. She appreciated less his tendency to question her commands. He was starting to get on her nerves a little bit.

“I understand that this… Cambion child will have powers some of us lack,” he said. “But why is it necessary that you have it and leave it topside? We could bring doctors here and…”

Meg raised her fist and closed her fingers very slowly. Guy’s words died in a violent coughing fit, as blood sputtered from his lips and down his chin. He gasped for air and moaned in pain, clutching his chest.

“She’ll be born and raised topside because I say so,” Meg replied. “That should be a good enough reason for you.”

“It will take years until she’s ready to fight,” Talbot intervened. “It’s better she grows somewhere she is… safe.”

Meg slowly opened her hand and Guy collapsed on the floor, still coughing and choking.

“You think she won’t be safe with us?” Marleen asked. She had chosen to possess a woman with dark brown hair who always wore pantsuits. Meg had brought her along for her efficiency in taking names and writing reports. She was the kind of bureaucrat needed for everything to work neatly.

“We’ve had reports of demons who aren’t… entirely happy with the way Kipling was disposed of,” Talbot commented.

“Demons are never happy,” Meg said, and everyone had the good sense to keeping their mouth shuts and not contradict her with platitudes about loyalty. Guy stumbled back to his chair, took out a handkerchief from the pocket of his suit and wiped his nose. “I will manage any uprising that might come my way, but I won’t allow the Cambion to be used as a weapon in it. She is meant to go up against Michael, if it ever comes to that.”

“We could still…” Guy started again. He coughed and shrunk a little when Meg glared at him, but he continued: “We could leave her under the care of some of our own. I know you’ll be busy here, your Majesty, but there’s no reason she can’t be raised by two demons who are loyal to you…”

“Are you volunteering for that job?” Meg asked, making sure to lower her voice just in the slightest so it’d sound more threatening.

Guy swallowed but he continued. He had nerve, Meg had to give him that.

“I… if your Majesty considers it necessary…”

“I do not,” Meg interrupted him. “What do you think Michael will do when he notices two demons playing house with a little girl? Do you think hunters won’t come knocking on our door when her powers start manifesting?” She shook her head. “She will be raised by humans, because an ordinary little girl is of no interest to anyone. I will be the only one that knows where she is and I’ll personally seek her out… when the time comes. And that will be when I decide, and not a second sooner.”

They all quietly nodded. Meg sighed, satisfied that at least that was going her way.

“I’m going topside for a week or so, which means I’ll be absent for a couple of years,” she told Talbot later on, as they strode down the hallway towards the throne. “Do you think you can handle yourself down here?”

Talbot stopped on her tracks, staring at her with eyes open wide in surprise.

“Me?” she repeated. “You want me to handle things while you’re gone?”

“And why not?” Meg asked. “Leon is busy with the racks, Marleen is a pencil pusher. As for Guy, I trust him only as far as I can throw him.”

“And you trust me?”

“Of course not. I don’t trust anyone. I’d be an idiot to do so. But I have reasons to believe you’re the most loyal of the bunch. And besides, you’re just a crossroads demon, and very young, at that. I don’t think you’ll be able to amass the necessary support to overthrow me in such a short time.”

Talbot crossed her arms over her chest.

“You might be underestimating me.”

“Maybe,” Meg admitted, with a shrug. “And I might be overestimating just how smart you are not to try and play me.”

She imprinted just the slightest threat to her tone, but the smirk on Talbot’s lips indicated she shouldn’t have bothered. Unless Meg was sorely mistaken, Talbot liked her.

It would be a shame if she turned out to be a traitor after all.

“I’ll see you soon enough.”

“And I’m guessing you won’t be pregnant when you do.”

Meg didn’t answer to this. Yes, if her calculations were correct and the way her daughter was moving and stretching inside her, then it wouldn’t be long now.

And that was precisely why she needed to go back to Earth.

She needed to go back to Castiel.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the lack of update on Friday! I was out of town and I forgot to take my flash drive with me.
> 
> "But Jo, couldn't you just have drafted the chapter and posted it on Friday?" - Yes. Yes, I suppose I could have done that.

Being the Queen of Hell certainly had a lot more perks than she’d thought. For example, normal demons could only escape Hell by squeezing through its gates, which were always just slightly ajar. Yes, some of them had been blown wide open in the latest years, especially when Lucifer had been running things, but for normal demons, it was that or being summoned by a human.

To her, however, the gates seemed a little wider. Wide enough that she only had to thought it, and there she was now, sitting in her chair in the middle of the Arizona desert, with the blue sky stretching for miles above her head and the sun beating down on her, nowhere near where she wanted to be.

She still took a moment to place her hand on her swollen belly and breathe in the clean, hot air around her.

“This is what I want for you,” she told her daughter. “I want this world to be yours.”

She got a soft kick for a reply. With a sigh, she closed her eyes and thought of Castiel. She thought of him like she hadn’t allowed herself to in months.

She thought of his face, always scrunched up in a too serious expression, his lips so full and always so warm, the stubble of his cheek scraping against her skin. His hands were big and gentle when they touched her body, but they could become just the right amount of rough with the right coaxing. His body was always warm and firm against hers, his grace, depleted as it was, still thrumming just beneath the surface, just powerful enough for Meg to feel it when she snuggled up against him…

The hollow sound of a plastic cup hitting the ground made her open her eyes.

“Meg?!” Sam shouted, staring at her with eyes wide open and his jaw slacked.

Meg looked around. She was on what seemed to be the parking of a rundown motel in the middle of Nowhere, USA. The Impala was to her right and Sam was standing right in front of her, with a puddle of coffee growing at his feet.

She ignored his surprised to go straight to what interested her.

“Let me guess, the room is demon-proofed,” she said. “Seriously, Sam? I’m trying not to take it personally, but I thought we were old pals by now.”

Sam still didn’t react.

“You…” he started, but the door swung open and Castiel stepped outside.

“Meg!” he called out. In two swift strides, he was by her side, kneeling in front of her chair so they’d be face to face. Without a second of hesitation, he put a hand on the back of her head and pulled her in for a kiss.

Meg melted against him with a sigh. She didn’t realize… she had been so busy, she hadn’t noticed how much she’d missed this, his touch, his kisses, his face…

Of course, that was a lie. She had forbidden herself to think about him, because she was afraid her thoughts would betray her and reveal to her new subjects just how pathetic their Queen of Hell actually was.

She put a hand on his chest and gently pushed him away, ignoring the way her stomach was fluttering and her heart was beating faster.

“Well, I guess I don’t have to ask if you missed me.”

“I was worried,” Castiel admitted, with that earnestness that was so typical of him. “I was afraid your plan hadn’t worked and…”

“Oh, it worked out,” Meg said, smirking. “You’re looking at the new Queen of Hell. And her heir apparent.”

“That’s what I was…! I didn’t…!” Sam intervened. He stopped babbling and pinched his nose for a second. “How are you _this_ pregnant? You were gone for two days!”

“Two days topside,” Meg replied with a shrug.

“Almost seven months in Hell,” Castiel replied without taking his eyes off her. “We agreed that the… benefits of Meg claiming the throne and hiding there would far outweighed the risks of her staying here, where Michael could find out about this.” His hand travelled from behind her head to land on her belly. His lips almost trembled, as if he was afraid to ask: “How is…?”

“She’s fine,” Meg assured him. “I think she is, in any case. She hasn’t stopped moving for days. It’s kind of getting on my nerves.”

Castiel’s lips twitched, a shadow of a smile that he felt like he had to hold back for some reason. Meg raised her head to notice that Jack was also standing on the doorway, looking at her with the same astonished expression as Sam. Meg grinned at them both.

“Well, is any of you, gentlemen, going to erase the anti-demons sigil so I can go inside, or…?”

She regretted it almost instantly once she was actually inside. The room was cheap as all get out, with yellowing paper wall and a stain of God only knew what on the carpet. There was a bed to the side, covered in empty beer bottles and food leftovers. At least the beds seemed clean enough for her to sit and analyze the information they had pin to one of the walls: disappearances, strange lights, some random deaths. A lot of random deaths, all within near vicinity of each other. All signs that pointed to nothing in particular, really, at least nothing that Meg could make sense of.

“What exactly are we looking at here?” she asked, tilting her head.

“We’re not entirely sure,” Sam said, sheepishly, but Jack began talking as if his life depended on it:

“The missing people, we think, are vessels for Michael’s army. He’s amassing it in order to attack Hell.”

“Good to know,” Meg said. “And the other deaths?”

“They’re…” Sam hesitated for a second before admitting: “We don’t know yet. They were vampires, but we don’t know what killed them. We know it was Michael, but… he did something to them…”

Meg leaned back on the bed. When she’d been in Hell, she hadn’t noticed all the little annoyances she was feeling now, like her back hurting and her feet being swollen.

“Maybe he was training them or something,” she suggested. “Monsters are deadly to humans. Michael wants to exterminate humans. Why not round up a nice little bundle of fangs and sic ‘em on the nearest suburban town?”

The heavy silence that follow that suggestion indicated that they’d probably thought about it, but weren’t quite ready to admit it to themselves yet. It was a terrifying idea: an army of monsters answering to a power-mad archangel trying to eat as many humans as they could, like a plague of locusts. Meg was sure there weren’t enough hunters in the world to deal with something like that.

It showed that she’d been right to keep everything she was doing in Hell under wraps. Michael hadn’t come knocking yet, but that was only because he had been busy figuring out the best way to get rid of humans. As soon as he turned their attention on them…

The mattress sank by her side.

“How are things going in Hell?” Castiel asked. He slid his hands towards her and Meg let him grab it. There was little comfort in it, especially because she didn’t want to seem like she was looking for comfort from him.

“We’ve rounded up souls and we’re trying to get as many of them off the rack as soon as possible,” Meg admitted. “But we’re not going to get enough demons in time, and definitely not powerful enough for an all-out war against the angels, should they try to lay siege to us.”

There was a moment of silence. Both Sam and Jack were pointedly looking away from her and even Castiel had a rictus of… something, in the corner of his mouth.

“What?” Meg asked them, crooking an eyebrow. “You all suddenly grew a conscious about working with the big, mean Queen of Hell? This is precisely why you need me: to do all sort of unsavory things you boys aren’t ready to do because you’re the good guys.”

“It doesn’t mean we have to like hearing about it,” Sam pointed out through gritted teeth.

Meg raised her chin at him.

“You’re right, you don’t. But at least recognize I’m the one who’s ready to whatever it takes to defeat Michael.”

A soft, sudden pain went through her back. She tightened her lips together, but she shouldn’t have bothered: it wasn’t intense and it didn’t last long enough to be of any concern.

“I have stakes on this too, you know,” she added.

She didn’t need to clarify what she meant. Now they were looking at her again, but not in the eye, oh, no. They were looking at her belly. Sam was curious, as if even though they had all sort of things to deal with already, he couldn’t help but to be at least partially interested about what would come out of there.

Jack was harder to read. He didn’t have the same micro-expressions she had become familiar with when looking at Castiel’s face, so unlike with the angel, she couldn’t tell what the boy was thinking. He didn’t seem uncomfortable, though, as he sat down on the other bed right in front of them.

“I have been… reading,” he announced.

Meg said nothing for a few seconds, because she thought he wasn’t done speaking. It soon became obvious he was going to need a little prompting to complete that thought.

“Good for you. I heard it sharpens the mind.”

“There’s lore on Cambions. Children who are half demons. And on nephilims like me,” he added before Meg could point out she knew what Cambions were. “But nothing on a half-demon, half-angel child. No matter how much I looked into it. It doesn’t seem to be possible.”

_Your impossible child._

Meg felt a shudder, accompanied by another short surge of pain. She could still remember the dream she’d had right before she’d found she was pregnant. The deep, angry voice, resounding in her head, asking her what she had done…

“Well, then, she’s not going to be like anything the world has ever seen,” she replied. She didn’t have to feign the pride in her voice. “All the worse for Michael.”

“No,” Castiel said. Despite him speaking softly, it shocked Meg enough that she had to turn all her attention on him. “She won’t fight on this war. I won’t allow it.”

“Cas, I don’t think we’re going to have much of an option,” Meg replied, with a shrug. “I don’t want her to fight either, but if push comes to shove…”

“No.”

Castiel left her side so brusquely she felt a jolt of astonishment.

No, wait. It was another sharp pain going down her back. Should she be counting how far apart these things were?

Didn’t matter. She still would have a couple of hours before she needed to actually do something about it. She didn’t stop to question how she knew this as she stared at Castiel’s back.

“Boys, do you mind giving us a second?” she requested.

“Of course,” Sam said. “Jack…”

Jack stayed on the bed another second, gazing directly at Meg, before he stood up and followed Sam outside. A part of Meg was certain they were going to eavesdrop the hell out of them anyway, but she appreciated at least having the illusion of privacy with her angel.

“Cas, I know you don’t want to think…”

“Why are you so certain that she will have to fight?” Castiel interrupted her, slowly turning towards her. “We might find a solution to all of this before that’s even necessary.”

“You’re being excessively optimistic,” Meg replied, sharply. “We’re up against a megalomaniac set on destroying the world while wearing your best friend’s face. Neither you nor Sam will have the guts to do what you must.”

Castiel stepped backwards and leaned against the table. He looked down at his shoes, his jaw clenched tight.

“You think we might have to kill him.”

He said it softly, almost as if the words hurt when heard out loud. Meg didn’t have to guess that he’d already considered that possibility. He was smart and honest enough for that.

“You know there’s no love lost between me and Dean.” She shrugged. “But I hope for your sake it doesn’t come to that.”

“You think it will, though.”

“I have no idea how else you’ll deal with it,” Meg said. She had never been one to mince for words and she saw no reason to do it now. “The angel exorcism didn't work on him. He’s not going to leave voluntarily. And if Dean was strong enough to expel him, he would have already.”

“Sam won’t allow it,” Castiel added, in a whisper even softer.

“I know.” Meg suppressed a grimace of pain as another contraction went down her spine. “Which is where we come in.”

Castiel shook his head.

“I don’t like it,” he groaned. “We made the same mistake with Jack. The boy’s known nothing but fighting and death since the moment he stepped onto this world, and it’s… I think it might be beginning to affect him.” He stopped and finally looked up at her. There was an infinite sadness in his blue eyes, the type of grief only an angel could experience. “I wanted it to be different for her.”

“It could be. At least for a while.” Meg sighed and closed her eyes. The pain was coming on stronger, so maybe she was running out of time faster than she’d thought. She let out a breath slowly, preparing herself for what she had to say next: “That’s why she’s gotta stay with you.”

Castiel’s eyes grew wide.

“Meg…” he began, as he took a step towards her. “You can’t possibly…”

“She has to,” Meg insisted. “She’ll be safer here.”

Castiel opened his mouth and then closed it again. He must have realized this wasn’t something that Meg was merely suggesting. She had already made up her mind about it long ago and she wasn’t going to discuss it with Castiel.

“I know she’ll grow up faster if I take her back to Hell with me,” she admitted. “But I don’t want her seeing that place. I’m not ashamed of doing what I have to do, but she… she’ll be innocent. She won’t understand. And the other demons…”

Meg stopped talking. Castiel was once again kneeling in front of her, his eyes staring deep into hers so attentively that she shivered. The warmth of his fingers of on her wrist was a subtle, intimate touch that, almost on the same level as when he’d taken her in his arms all those months ago and made sure to trace his fingers over every inch of her body. The memory left her breathless and aching for him, left him wanting to kiss him, pull him closer to her one more time, get lost in the warmth of his grace thrumming lightly under his skin.

They had spoken about the future, but not in terms that sounded possible. Before she’d found out she was pregnant, they had been living for a hypothetical tomorrow neither of them had given much thought to. Meg supposed that at some point this new Dean crisis would be solved and then…

She didn’t know. She hadn’t planned on returning to Hell, let alone rule it, because she'd hoped it wouldn't have to come to that. She hadn’t had any plans at all, which was strange for her. She’d been content living in the bunker, pretending to be human in front of the other hunters, spending the nights with Castiel. It had been… blissful, despite all the troubles. Perhaps the only bliss Meg had known since becoming a demon.

And she only realized how much she’d enjoyed it now that it was over and there were very few chances that they could recover that time. Castiel had said nothing and neither had she. She wasn’t some chick that needed to be reassured that she was loved and wanted or whatever. But at that moment, the only thing that she wanted even more than to drag Castiel to the bed with her was to hear him say that short time together had been as great for him as it had been for her. That it had meant something.

What was this feeling? Melancholy? Nostalgia? Whatever it was, she did not like it one bit.

It lasted only a moment. She closed her eyes and when she opened them again, she remembered who they were and what they needed to do now.

Besides, having sex right now wasn’t feasible. She could barely move and she was still completely sure that Sam and Jack were listening in on their conversation.

“Have you thought of a name?” she asked, clumsily changing the topic.

This time, Castiel gave her a soft, happy smile, as if the mere thought of it was enough to make him forget all his worries. He wanted this child, perhaps even more than she did.

“You’ve had more time to ponder it than me,” he pointed out. Gently, he pressed a hand against their belly. “And in any case, what do you call something that it’s completely new?”

“Guess we could take a look at bouncybabynames.com for ideas,” she suggested with a grimace.

This time she couldn’t hide it quickly enough. Castiel frowned, his eyes scanning her face closely.

“Meg?” he started.

She opened her mouth, but all that came out of it was a pained moan.

She had a high threshold for pain. She knew all about it, how to inflict and how to stand it. Her very soul had been tortured at the hands of the cruelest demons Hell had ever spawned. So when her body started aching, she ignored because she thought she’d time to finish this talk before it all became a mess.

Her daughter had other ideas.

It was as if her veins were suddenly filled with liquid fire, tearing through her, boiling her from the inside out. Meg bit down on her tongue and the rotten taste of her own blood filled her mouth.

“Meg!” Castiel called out again, his hands coming to rest of her cheeks. “You’re burning up!”

Meg looked down at the hands he was holding and gasped for air. Her skin was glowing with a soft golden light, as if something was trying to erupt from underneath it.

It seemed to last an eternity.

But only a few short breaths, the pain remitted and her skin went back to normal.

“Okay.” Meg forced herself to keep breathing, ignoring the shudders and the unpleasant aftershocks. “Okay, it’s over.”

Judging by the fear in Castiel’s face, it was far from it.

“Sam!” he called out. “Jack!”

Just as Meg had suspected, they were right outside the door and came bursting in as soon as he called them.

“We have to take her to the bunker!” Castiel exclaimed.

“But what about…?”

“Now!” Castiel exclaimed, already grabbing one of Meg’s arms to drape it over his neck.

“Cas, it’s a two-hours’ drive,” Sam said.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous.” Meg rolled her eyes. “Kid, bring my chair over here.”

Jack’s eyes were open wide and he was pale all of the sudden, but he obeyed. Castiel helped her sit on it again. Meg took a deep, stuttering breath.

“I don’t know if I’m strong enough to take us all there,” she admitted. That last contraction had left her drained: her muscles were sore and heavy in a way that felt unnatural for her, and all she wanted to do was close her eyes and rest.

But she couldn’t do that. Not right now.

“Then you should take Cas,” Sam said. “We’ll catch up with you.”

That was the most reasonable plan. Castiel nodded and grabbed her hand, tight. Meg took a deep breath, ignoring the way her bones suddenly felt like they weighted a ton and how her very soul was crumpled deep inside her. She needed to expand her perception. Focus on the bunker. It’s metal door, the abandoned factory built atop it.

Another image kept interrupting her thoughts. The image of a dark, small place. It had been warm and soft, she somehow knew this, but now it was getting crumpled. She was vibrating inside, expanding, growing and she wanted to come out. She needed to come out of there…

She realized, with a jolt, those weren’t her thoughts. That tiny sliver of a will that could only think in small, uncomplicated terms grazing her mind didn’t belong to her.

She thought of the bunker once more.

 _We need to go there_ , she explained to the other mind. The mind that had just woken up inside her and was ready to start living. _We need to go there so you’ll be safe_.

The pain returned, white, hot, searing. She screamed out involuntarily and Castiel’s hand squeezed hers tightly, her bones creaking.

But a breeze caressed her face and the smell of pine and warmth earth reached her nose.

They were outside of the bunker, but Meg only barely had time to register that before Castiel picked her up from the chair effortlessly.

She would’ve had protested at being manhandled that way, if it wasn’t because her skin was on fire once again. She held onto Castiel’s neck, her nails sinking into his skin as she bit into her tongue once again. The world spun and disappeared around her and when it came into focus again, they were already flying downstairs, with Mary holding a cellphone still in her hand.

“Yes, they’re here already. I’ll call you back. Meg is in a lot of pain…”

She was falling. No, Castiel was putting her down. She sank unto the mattress and tried to calm her breathing. Her entire body felt wet and sticky, and she was shaking, the waves coming on now like an enraged sea. Her vision was getting blurry on the edges, so it took her a second to realize Castiel was leaning closer to her.

“Meg? Listen to me, I need to take off your clothes. Meg?”

Meg could barely speak. She could barely think. Her mind was foggy and confused, but she needed to focus. She had to focus.

The little will that she’d sensed before was growing stronger now. She could feel her, a tiny, scared presence, retreating inside of the fire that was threatening to burn her from the inside out.

But it wouldn’t. Because she had been broken down and forged again before. Over and over, she had endured everything that had been to her, the degradation, the cutting and carving, death itself. And she was there, the Queen of Hell, proud and strong and bearing an impossible child.

She would endure this too.

She couldn’t speak, but she looked at Castiel right in the eye and nodded.

His hands were gentle even as they did away with her jeans. At her side, Mary was pressing a cold rag against her head. It did nothing for the raging fever that scorched Meg and the strange glow on her skin, but she supposed the woman wanted to make herself useful.

“This isn’t normal,” Castiel said. Even though Meg barely heard his voice, as if it was coming from far away, she could perceive the tension and worry in it.

She wanted to laugh and tell him that nothing in this situation was normal, but all she could manage was another shrill shout.

“No. But I’ve seen it before,” Mary replied.

“When?”

There was a second of silence, of ephemeral calm. Meg managed to tilt her head up just enough to see Mary’s anxious expression.

“Mary!” Castiel insisted, impatiently.

“With Kelly.”

Meg had no idea what that meant, but she was certain it was the first time she saw an angel going pale.


	4. Chapter 4

Meg’s body was being torn apart.

Or at least, that was how it felt like. It came down her spine and made her scream, louder than before, as if her lungs wanted to escape her bloodied mouth. The lights overhead sputtered sparkles and then burst, making Mary cry out in surprise. Castiel remained calmly between Meg’s open legs, but the creases in his forehead were deeper than ever before.

“I can see something,” he said. “I think…”

Mary also ran to gander between her legs and Meg would’ve made a joke about it if she had been able to produce a sound that wasn’t an incoherent scream.

“Oh, this baby is coming fast!” she said. “Cas, hold her up. Meg, you need to push, okay? With the next contraction, push her down.”

“I have no idea…” Meg began to protest, but the protest died in her lips with another shout.

Castiel’s hands gently held her by the waist. She leaned down against his strong, firm body with relief and rested her head against his shoulder. At least he was there. She could allow herself a moment to be weak if he was there.

“Clarence, listen. You have to keep her safe. Promise me…”

Castiel held her hand so tight it would have crushed her if she had been human. With the other one, he brushed aside the damp locks of her hair from her forehead.

“We’ll keep her safe,” he whispered. “The both of us.”

Meg wanted to believe it. There were moments where convinced herself that she was going to get through this, no matter what, and moments when she was certain her heart would gave out. It felt like dying.

It felt like when Crowley had dug his blade deep into her guts and she had felt the life escaping her, how she couldn’t hold on anymore to the body that had been hers for years. Except this was slower and a hundred times more intense. But she couldn’t let go and vanish into nothingness like she’d done then. She was the only thing keeping that body alive and she couldn’t falter, because if she did…

The contraction surprised her, but she managed to ride the wave of pain and do as Mary had told her: forcing every single cell, every single atom in her soul to push down, to help that little will that belonged to her and at the same time not out.

With a wail, her body split in two.

There were sirens howling in time with her and red lights flashing in the darkness. Castiel was by her side, his eyes glowing silver instead of blue, his hands holding her tight and his lips moving, though she couldn’t make out what he was saying.

And then, above it all, above the noise and the light and her own exhaustion, a sharp cry that soon became a full on wail that echoed against the walls of the small room.

The pain remitted, just enough for Meg to breath out a sigh of relief.

“It’s…” Mary looked up at her from the other of the bed. Her eyes were wide open and her jaw slacked, as if she wasn’t quite sure what she was seeing. “It’s… a girl, I think…”

“Well, of course it’s a girl,” Meg groaned, closing her eyes.

She didn’t really mean to pass out.

But the darkness engulfed her faster than she could fight it.

 

* * *

 

She was dreaming again.

She sat upon a tree stump, looking at the forest in front of her. The breeze rustled the trees’ leaves and cooled her fevered skin. That was the only sound she could perceive and that was fine by her. She was happy. She was content.

“You have no idea what you’ve done, do you?”

She turned around. A few trees away from her, leaning against one of the trunks, there was a tall, dark skinned woman with curly hair. She was dressed with a long, black coat and her full lips were pursed in a gesture of discontent.

“Queen of Hell,” Meg said, with a shrug. “I’m not in the habit of giving explanations for my actions.”

The woman let out a sigh, but there was undeniable curiosity in her dark brown eyes as she tilted her head towards her.

“You never did. You’re just a black-eyed demon that has risen way above her station. You’re not a Knight or a Prince. You’re old, but there were others, older and more powerful than you.”

“And they’re all dead now,” Meg pointed out.

“I know.” She took a step towards her. “As were you. You shouldn’t have been allowed to come back.”

“I wasn’t.”

Castiel had brought her back. He’d ripped her soul back from wherever she’d been (the Empty, he’d called it, the place were demons and angels slept eternally) because…

She’d never asked him. Because he felt guilty, she supposed.

The woman in black sighed.

“You and your angel are almost as problematic as the Winchesters,” she said. “What he did to bring you back and what you two have done together… that isn’t something the universe can just ignore. It isn’t something _anyone_ can ignore. I had no idea it was possible. No one did. Your child is going to be like a beacon, attracting all sort of attention towards her because of her very nature.”

Her words touched something inside of Meg. She had been calm up until that point, but the moment she heard this woman speak of her daughter, something inside her had twisted up in a knot.

Why was she there? Why was she sleeping when her daughter needed her? If this woman, whoever she was, was right, that meant that her daughter was in danger because of her very existence.

“I need to wake up,” Meg said.

“We’re not done speaking,” the woman replied.

Meg glared at her. Was she trying to tell her what she could and couldn’t do? Who the hell did she think she was?

“Yes. We’re done.”

 

* * *

 

When she opened her eyes again, the sirens and the flashing lights had stopped. She wondered for a moment if she had hallucinated them, if she had hallucinated it all: Castiel, the throne, their daughter…

But there were other things that had changed drastically. For example, she wasn’t covered in her own sweat anymore: somebody had cleaned and dried her body, taken her drenched clothes away and dressed her in a soft, loose nightgown.

And she wasn’t pregnant anymore.

She felt down her now flat stomach, feeling strangely empty but also lighter. For a second or two, she enjoyed the fact that she simply wasn’t hurting anymore.

Then her instincts kicked in.

Where was she?

As if to answer her question, the door in front of her opened and Sam sauntered inside, but stopped dead in his tracks.

“You… you’re awake!” he said.

“You sound surprised,” Meg replied. The vocal range in this body had always been low and raspy, but it shocked her how hoarse she sounded now. She sat up. “Where’s my daughter?”

Instead of answering, Sam moved to bring something closer to the bed: her chair.

“The birth took a lot out of you. Castiel was afraid that it had drained you completely. He stayed with you as long as he could, but the baby needed his attention. You’ve been sleeping for almost two days...”

He extended his arm to help her. Meg considered ignoring the offer for a second, but she still was too weak, so she swallowed her pride and accepted the help, settling down on her chair. It crackled with the energy she sent to its gears before Sam could make a move to try and push her.

“Where’s my daughter?” she asked again.

“She…” Sam hesitated. “Look, she’s not going to be what you expect her to be.”

“No one knows what to expect,” she replied, sharply. “Answer my question, Samuel. Where _is_ she?”

Sam licked his lips.

“I think Castiel took her to the library. But, Meg…”

She stopped paying attention to his words as she rolled past him. It took her a moment to orient herself inside of the bunker (how big was that damn place anyway?), but she found her way soon enough.

Castiel was sitting with his back to the hallway Meg was coming down from, leaned over the table as if he was examining something thoroughly.

“That’s very good. I like that very much.”

A soft, squeaky voice answered something in words that Meg couldn’t make up. She rolled even closer and…

“Mommy!”

The shout came accompanied by a flutter of papers flying in the air and the clattering of pencils over the floor. A tiny blur of blue came running towards her and before she knew it, there was a small body climbing up her lap and a pair of little arms lassoing her neck.

“Mommy!” the little girl shouted again. “You’re finally awake!”

“Who…?” Meg muttered, stunned.

She pushed the girl away a little and her heart sped up as she did. She was four, maybe five years old. She had a round little face and a soft smile on her pink lips. She was wearing a blue dress with black flowers on the skirt and no shoes. Long black hair fell loose on her shoulders and her eyes were shining with enthusiasm.

Her eyes… her eyes were strange. At first glance, it was barely noticeable, but as Meg was watching her closely, she noticed it: the right one was bright blue, clear as day, while the left one was darker, a shade of brown not unlike those of the body Meg had chosen to inhabit.

“Who are you?” Meg asked, with a lump in her throat. She already half-expected the answer she was going to get, but she still couldn’t help her shock when the little girl chuckled and said confidently:

“Don’t be silly, mommy. It’s me! It’s Eris!”

“Eris,” Castiel called out. He’d stood up and walked towards them. It was unfair to say that he looked tired, because he was an angel and he physically could not be, but his clothes were disheveled (even more so than usual) and his hair was a mess, as if he’d run his hands through it repeatedly in the last day. “Your mom is awake, but try not to overwhelm her.”

Eris frowned, a gesture that made her look comically grown… and a lot like her father.

“But she just slept for days and days and days!”

“It hasn’t been that long,” Castiel replied, patiently. “She went through a lot to make sure you were born. She must still be tired.”

Eris eyes and mouth opened wide at the same time.

“Oh, I know! Sam!” she called out, stretching her head to look over Meg’s shoulder. “Can you make my mommy a cup of coffee?”

“Umh…” Sam started.

“You said coffee helps grown-ups when they were tired. Can you make some for her?”

“Well…” Sam started. Castiel nodded subtly at him. If Meg didn’t know him better, she could have sworn that he was two seconds away from begging. “Sure. You want to come to the kitchen and help me?”

“Yes!” Eris exclaimed enthusiastically before setting her eyes on Meg once again. “I’ll be right back, mommy.”

She left a soft, warm kiss on Meg’s cheek and climbed down to grab Sam’s hand.

Meg watched her back as they stalked towards the kitchen, mesmerized. She wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened, but it’d felt like being swept by a tiny, bare-footed hurricane and then left to pick up the pieces by herself.

Castiel sighed, closed his eyes for two seconds and then turned to her, his concern clear as day in his eyes.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, reaching for her hand as he knelt in front of her.

“I’m…” Meg started, but she wasn’t sure anymore. “I don’t… what the fuck, Clarence?”

“I know,” Castiel replied. “She’s restless. Literally. I don’t think she has slept yet.”

He started picking up the pencils and papers that Eris had swept to the floor in her rush while he explained to Meg what had happened since she’d been unconscious: at first, Eris was a normal baby, who cried, drank her milk, cried some more, shit her diapers. The usual. But then…

“She started gaining weight and growing within a few hours,” he explained. “I set her down on the crib when she stopped crying to go check on you and when I came back, she was standing on her own and trying to climb over it. Then she started talking and… she hasn’t really stopped since. She asks about everything and learns so fast…”

“Okay, I get that,” Meg said, still trying to recover from the whiplash. “But how…? Why is she growing so fast?”

“I don’t know,” Castiel admitted. “Something similar happened with Jack. He was born and then he… grew. We thought he’d done so voluntarily, but when I asked Jack about it to have any idea what to expect, he shrugged and said he wasn’t sure how or why he’d done that.” He stopped as he gathered together all the papers Eris had been drawing on. “Eris’ growth seems to be slowing down now. She gets hungry every couple of hours, so I think she must be burning a lot of energy. And then there’s this.”

He handed Meg the drawings. The first couple ones were unintelligible messes: just circles of colors upon colors, as if Eris had been trying to draw with every single pencil at the same time. Those must have been her first attempts, because as she passed them by, she started seeing some clumsy, but recognizable shapes: rectangles that looked vaguely like books, cups, a stick-figured man with a long, brown trench coat and a pair of wings springing from his back. The drawings were all signed with a little spiral in the bottom corner of the page.

Meg looked up at Castiel. She had watched Eris closely, but…

“Does she have a…?”

Castiel nodded.

Sam and Eris returned then. The little girl was carrying a steaming cup of coffee, but the heat didn’t seem to bother her. She proudly placed it on Meg’s hands and smiled at her.

“Drink up, mommy.”

Meg did so, not because she wanted to or because she thought coffee was going to help her somehow, but because she really had no idea what else to do right now. The coffee was bitter and strong and for a human, it would’ve been burning hot. For her, it was just right.

“You feeling better now?” Eris asked. “Can we go outside?”

“Outside?” Meg repeated, confused. “You haven’t been outside of the bunker?”

“She… wanted to wait until you woke up,” Castiel explained. Then he licked his lips. “Eris, before we do that, do you think you can show your shadow to your mom?”

Eris pursed her lips.

“But I want to go outside now!”

“We’ll do it as soon as you show it to your mom. Please?” Castiel insisted.

“I… I really want to see it,” Meg added, though she had no idea if that should be of any incentive to the girl.

Eris sighed deeply, as if she thought all of this was unnecessary, but muttered “okay” and stepped back.

“Cas,” Sam said, eyeing the angel apprehensively. “Are you sure? Last time…”

“She needs to see it, Sam,” Castiel argued and that was apparently enough of an argument to convince him.

Eris looked behind her, as if to make sure she was standing in front of the bunker’s brick wall and then stood with her back very rigid, closing her eyes.

For a second or two, nothing really happened.

Then, Meg heard it: the same acute, vibrating, crystalline sound angels made when they descended upon the earth. A light grew around the little girl, soft at first but growing in intensity along with the sound. Sam’s concern became obvious as the walls and tables began shaking and the light bulbs above them flashed on and off again.

It didn’t take long before Meg saw it: the shadow growing behind Eris. It was that of a much taller person, as if what Eris was inside could barely be contained by the small frame she had right now. The figure extended its black wings, large and proud, spanning almost all of the wall.

But there was something else, something that almost made her burst out laughing as she noticed it: from the figure’s head, there sprang a pair of big twisted horns that added several inches to Eris height. She opened her eyes and they were no longer blue and brown. They were like a negative of themselves, the sclera of a deep, impenetrable black and the pupil shining silver and white.

So that was what she was. Hidden inside that little girl, there was this creature that combined a piece of her twisted soul and a smudge of Castiel’s divine grace.

A lump formed in Meg’s throat. She was beautiful. And she was powerful like nothing else that had walked the earth before her.

One of the light bulbs burst and sparks flew inside of the library.

“Cas!” Sam called out in protest.

“That’s enough, Eris.”

The light disappeared in a heartbeat and when Eris blinked again, the dissimilar color of her eyes reappeared.

“You looked strange, mommy,” she commented, her voice dropping almost to a whisper.

Meg realized, with a pang, that she’d managed to see beyond the human mask that she wore when walking on earth. Had she noticed her hollow eye sockets, her sharpen teeth? Probably. But she didn’t seem scared as she moved to climb on Meg’s lap again.

“Strange bad?” Meg asked her.

Eris put both hands on her cheeks and watched her closely, as if she was reflecting deeply about that question. Maybe she just didn’t know that she was supposed to be scared of creatures like Meg. And why would she, after all?

“No. Just strange different,” she concluded, with a little shrug. “Can we go outside now?”

 

* * *

 

The outside… seemed to disappoint her somehow.

Meg was certain that Eris was going to start running around, asking about the fields, the dirt road and the small woods that surrounded the bunker. Instead, she stood with her eyes to the sky, blinking repeatedly and frowning as if she was trying to figure something out.

“What are you looking at, Eris?” Castiel asked her.

Instead of answer, Eris took a couple of clumsy steps forwards. Castiel had insisted she’d put on shoes before stepping outside but she clearly found them uncomfortable. Perhaps because they were a number too small for her.

In any case, she knelt among the dirt and pressed an open palm against the ground.

“It’s all here,” she said.

Meg exchanged a look with Castiel and was relieved to discover that he was just as confused as she was.

“Well, what were you expecting to find?” she asked.

“Not… for all to be here,” Eris said.

“What do you mean by that?”

Eris looked at them with her lips twisted, as if she was frustrated they didn’t just understand what she was saying and she didn’t yet have the words to explain it to them.

“Are there humans?” she asked. “Other than Mary and Sam?”

“Umh… yes,” Castiel answered. “Would you like to see them? We can go to the town, if you want. Get something to eat.”

Eris reflected on this as if it was a very serious question, and then nodded.

“I’ll go get the car,” Castiel said.

“We can fly there,” Eris protested.

“I’ll still prefer it if we get the car,” Castiel insisted. “So we can all go together.”

Eris crossed her little arms over her chest, frustrated as she saw her father disappear inside of the bunker again. Which immediately gave Meg an idea.

“Hey,” she said, rolling and stopping next to Eris. “We can go and your dad can catch us later. What do you say?”

The little smirk in her lips and the way her eyes twinkled were enough of a reply for Meg.

Teleporting to the nearby town of Lebanon was not really much of an effort, though Meg must have still been drained, because she was panting slightly when they appeared on a corner next to the post office. A man that was picking up his mail startled and stared at them for a second until Meg stared right back and asked him point blank:

“What?”

The man immediately went back to his business as if it was nothing. Eris giggled softly, and Meg had to admit that was one of the nicest sounds she’d ever heard.

They rolled down the street at a rather slow pace. The people of the town sometimes stopped to stare rudely at her, as if seeing a woman in a wheelchair with a little girl clinging to her neck was the strangest thing they’d seen in their lives. They looked away as soon as Meg caught their eye, of course.

Eris, on her part, did nothing but stare at them, slack-jawed and sometimes outright pointing at them.

“Mom look! Look at that lady! Look at her dress! Look at those kids!”

Meg simply nodded and agreed with whatever assertion she made. She was having a blast, just because she found it hilarious how people clearly thought Meg ought to tell Eris to stop, but didn’t know how to approach her. The chair made them uncomfortable, she supposed. Who wanted to be seen starting shit with a poor, disabled mother?

They found a small café that also served frozen yogurt and sat on one of the chairs they had on the street. Eris put every top available on hers and Meg wondered for a second if that much sugar was good for her. She then decided it didn’t matter. Eris wasn’t a normal child. She could handle eating whatever she wanted.

And in any case, after the novelty of watching the lady behind the counter sprinkle the yogurt with gummy bears passed, she only ate a couple of spoonfuls before she went quiet and started staring at the people passing by again. Lebanon was a tiny town, minuscule really, and it didn’t seem like it was a particularly busy morning, but Eris still commented:

“There are… so many of them.”

“Oh, yes,” Meg agreed, taking a sip from her coffee. “Billions, actually.”

“Billions,” Eris repeated, and then once more, as if she was tasting the word: “Bi-llions. That’s… a big number, isn’t it?”

“It is and they’re everywhere. They’re like a plague,” Meg said. She tried to make it sound humorous, but Eris just looked at her with a small frown between her eyebrows. She did look a lot like Castiel when she did that. “Don’t tell your dad I said that. He’s attached to them.”

“And you aren’t?”

Meg took a moment under Eris’ interrogating gaze to think about that.

“How much has your dad told you about… humanity and… things?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Some,” Eris said. “Of course, some stuff I already knew.”

That was strange. Despite the fact that Eris looked like a little girl, she wasn’t more than a couple of days old. It didn’t make any sense for her to “know” anything.

“What stuff? And how did you know it?”

Eris shrugged again, as if it wasn’t important, and ate some more of her frozen yogurt.

“You told me some stuff too,” she added, all of the sudden, turning towards her. “When I was inside you.”

Meg raised her eyebrows, surprised.

“You remember that?”

“I was asleep sometimes,” Eris replied. “But when we got here, I woke up. And I couldn’t go back to sleep again.”

Meg leaned over the table to look at Eris closely. It was impossible to read her: sometimes she spoke or acted like the little girl she appeared to be and sometimes she said things like that, things that made her suspect…

The universe was paying attention to her. To the both of them. She needed to remember that.

“So you know what I am?” she asked, lowering her voice. “What I do?”

Eris didn’t answer immediately, but she frowned again, deep in thought.

“There are bad humans,” she concluded. “You take them away to a dark place, so they won’t hurt other humans. So what you do is good, even though is scary.”

That was an oversimplification of it, but Meg still was surprised at the accuracy of her words. She was a child, so of course her sense of right and wrong would be skewered and simplistic. If Eris thought only bad people ended up in Hell, then of course she would see what Meg did as “good”.

“And then there are good humans, like Sam,” Eris continued. Her face lit up with a smile. “I like Sam.”

“You do?”

“Yes. He went out one time and when he came back, he brought pencils and he gave them to me and he said to dad ‘she’s bored, she needs something to do’. And he also gave me papers to draw.”

“Do you like drawing?”

“Yes!” Eris shouted, so loud some people turned to look at them. “I’m going to make you a drawing, mommy! Can I? I’m going to draw you, and your chair, and I’m gonna draw dad and his wings too…”

Meg listed to her and watched her gesticulate about all the things she’d add to this drawing, fascinated. This wasn’t how she’d imagined it, no. She thought she’d be dealing with a baby, a child so small that she wouldn’t remember the things she’d say to her or…

The fact that she had to leave.

She always knew she’d have to leave after Eris was born. She’d told it to Talbot, she’d told it to Castiel. But now that she was actually there, having frozen yogurt with her daughter – her _daughter_ , what a strange thought – she didn’t really want to. She wanted to stay and listen to Eris’ strange ramblings and discover what else she was capable of, what other surprises she had hidden in her small mind.

It wasn’t possible though. She opened her mouth to say something along the lines of taking Eris’ drawing with her when she went away when a honk on the street drowned out Eris words. She turned around to see the Winchesters’ Impala had stopped abruptly in the middle of the street, almost causing the car behind it to crash it.

“Looks like he’s found us,” Meg said, grimacing and Eris giggled.

Castiel parked the Impala to the side and got out of it. Judging by Castiel’s frown, Meg figured he didn’t take well to the both of them just and disappearing on him. She wasn’t going to apologize though, so she simply put on her biggest smile.

“Hello, Clarence.”

“You couldn’t have just waited five minutes?” Castiel groaned.

“I mean, maybe I could have,” Meg admitted readily. “But Eris really wanted some frozen yogurt.”

Eris picked up the cup, threw her head back and held it up so even the last drop of yogurt fell on her open mouth, disregarding completely the stains her dress got in the process. She then licked her lips greedily.

“Can I have another? Please?”

Castiel stared at them angrily for about two more seconds before he sighed and pulled the chair to sit in front of Meg.

“Yes. I guess you can have another.”

Eris stood up and waddled towards the counter. Meg was almost completely certain that her dressed had become a couple of inches shorter since they’d been sitting there. Was it possible she was literally growing before her very eyes without her noticing?

“She’s something else, huh?”

Castiel didn’t meet her eye. He was busy watching Eris as she stood on the tip of her toes and asked the frozen yogurt lady for another cup.

“I don’t know what she is,” Castiel admitted. “I don’t know what to do about her.”

Meg drank her coffee without answering. She didn’t want to have to admit that she had even less of an idea what they were supposed to do now. So she changed the topic.

“I have to ask. Why Eris?”

“She liked it.”

“You…” Meg blinked at him, confused. “You let her pick her own name?”

“I did what you said. I opened the baby names page and started trying different ones for her. She kept shaking her head and crying until I got to Eris and then she just… why are you laughing, Meg?”

Meg hadn’t realized she was, but now she couldn’t stop. He still had the capacity to make her laugh like that, even when she wasn’t expecting it to. Dammit, she was going to miss him. She wasn’t planning on staying gone for long, but all the same… it would be long for her.

Castiel watched her closely and his lipped quirked in a soft smile. He stretched his hand over the table and grazed hers. A small discharge of energy when up her arm and made her stop.

And then he said exactly what she was fearing he would say:

“Stay with us? Please?”

Meg made an effort not to pull her hand back at that request.

“You know I can’t.”

“Meg, please. She needs you.” He stopped, the infinite sadness in his eyes making them seem even brighter than ever. “I need you.”

That came dangerously close to the other thing she didn’t want him to say. Because that was going to make it even harder to leave.

So she started playing defense. She pulled her hand back and shook her head.

“Cas, what did you think was going to happen? That I was going to stay and we were going to play house and no one would ever come looking for us? No angels or demons or hunters when they find out about her?”

“She needs her mother, Meg,” Castiel insisted.

Meg bit the inside of her cheek. Why was it this hard? Why couldn’t she make him understand?

She was a demon. She was the goddamn Queen of Hell now. She tortured souls and caused chaos and destruction wherever she went. Had she had children when she was a human? Had she ever known how to be a mother? Or was this pull she felt towards Eris, that she had felt from the moment she knew she was pregnant, just because it was _her_ daughter? Either way, she knew exactly why she had to leave and it had nothing to do with her new title or with the Michael situation. It was far simpler than that.

“She doesn’t need _me_ ,” she said in a whisper. “That’s why I’m leaving her with you.”

“You’re leaving?”

The little voice behind her startled her. They both turned around to see Eris standing near the table, a cup of frozen yogurt in her hand. Her lower lip was trembling and there were tears brimming in her mismatched eyes.

Castiel’s position went stiff.

“Eris, please don’t…”

But it came a little too late. Eris dropped her cup of yogurt to the ground, where it became a puddle of pink and sprinkled her shoes, just as she opened her mouth to scream.

Meg had never in her life heard a shriller sound. It was like the vibration from before and at the same time, nothing like it. As it grew louder the more Eris cried, a loud wind began howling along with her, amassing clouds that soon covered the sun.

Castiel moved fast. He stood up and knelt in front of her.

“Eris!” he shouted, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Eris, stop!”

The cup in front of Meg cracked and then burst into pieces and a second later, so did the yogurt store’s windows with a din that would’ve been deafening if it hadn’t been for Eris’ screams. People were on the floor, covering their ears, while others began running away, trying to get as far away from the sound as it was possible.

“Goddammit!” Meg muttered and moved her chair closer to Eris and Castiel.

It took a second longer than it should’ve, because the screams were giving her a splitting headache, but she finally managed to focus long enough for them to teleport directly inside of the bunker, where they startled the hell out of Sam and Jack to the point he almost dropped the books he was carrying towards the library.

“What happened?” the nephilim asked them, his eyes opening wide.

Eris escaped from both Meg and Castiel’s grip and ran towards Sam, to hug his legs and hide her wet little face against his knees. She was still crying loud enough that the library’s shelves shook and the lights flickered madly above them.

“Okay, okay!” Sam muttered, kneeling down. “Eris? Eris, hey, listen. Take a deep breath. Can you do that for me?”

Eris sobbed and sniffled, but at least she wasn’t screaming anymore and the bunker didn’t feel like it was at the epicenter of an earthquake. The lights still flickered, but eventually they stopped as well.

“That’s better. That’s okay,” Sam said, patting her in the head. “It’s okay.”

Eris said nothing, just continued crying while stubbornly refusing to look at Castiel when he called her name and burying her face further into Sam’s neck.

“Eris…” Meg started, but before she could add another word, Castiel opened his eyes wide and Eris lifted her head.

“Who’s that?” she asked, her voice suddenly hoarse.

“What do you mean?” Meg asked.

“There’s… someone talking,” Eris said, moving her head to either side, as if she expected someone other than the people already there to manifest inside the bunker all of the sudden. “I don’t understand what they’re saying.”

“Angels,” Castiel clarified. His fists were suddenly clenched. “They… they heard a disturbance and they’re coming here. To Lebanon.”

Meg’s throat closed all of the sudden, but after a few seconds of panic, she managed to speak again:

“Then we have to go. Now!”


	5. Chapter 5

It took them all of five minutes to be ready to leave. Castiel packed some clothes for Eris in a duffel bag while Sam hastily made some calls to Mary and the other hunters that were scheduled to come back to the bunker later that day, telling them to stay away.

“I’m going to shut it down as an emergency measure. You need to stay away for the time being, do you hear me?”

Jack was loudly unhappy with that decision.

“Sam, we can stay,” he argued. “This is our chance to fight Michael face to face.”

“With what, exactly?” Sam snapped back, holding his cellphone to his chest. “You’re weakened, we don’t have a weapon, we have no idea how much backup he’s bringing along…”

“But…”

“Jack, now it’s not the time,” Castiel said.

“What are they talking about?” Eris asked.

She was once again curled up on Meg’s lap, looking at the men running around. At the very least she’d stopped screaming.

“Don’t worry about it,” Meg told her. “It’s not going to be for long.”

“Are we leaving because of something I did?” Eris continued asking. “I’m sorry.”

“We’ll talk about it later,” Meg told her as Castiel approached them with the bag slung over their shoulders.

“Sam and Jack will leave in the car to distract them. Are you ready?”

As an answer, Meg stretched her hand towards him and squeezed it. She thought about a small cabin lost in the middle of the woods, with its wooden walls and its rustic furniture, its perpetual smell of alcohol mixed with the humid earth and the leaves rustling…

And they were there, miles away from Lebanon and inside a cabin that had belonged to a long since dead hunter.

The place hadn’t changed much in the years since Meg had been there. It was still rustic and isolated, exactly what they needed, but the air was heavy and reeked of something rotten. There was a thin layer of dust over the chairs, the table and the counters that made Eris sneeze.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Somewhere safe,” Castiel replied.

“This place is a dumpster,” Meg determined. “How long has it been since the Winchesters were here?”

The wheels of her chair rattled against the floor as she moved to leave Eris on top of the couch. She snapped her fingers and all the windows burst open as one. A soft breeze swept away most of the dust and immediately the lights turned on and the TV came to life, spouting static before a news show appeared.

“… the sleepy town of Lebanon experienced a strange phenomenon, when an explosion at a local store left surprised several people who were having a morning stroll down Main Street. Luckily, there were no fatal victims, though some have been injured…”

Eris sat up, starting intently at the screen. Meg kept an eye on her as she went to open the fridge. Just as she’d suspected, she found it completely empty except for a couple of spiders that had decided to set up their cobwebs there.

“That’s the yogurt store,” Eris said, softly.

“What do you think, Lani? What could have possibly cause this?” the newscaster asked.

“Well, Rob, it’s all very confusing right now, with contradictory information coming in from local sheriff office and the fire station department. Some are saying this was the product of a gas leak, but no one can explained what the sound that witnesses affirmed to have heard right before it was. Regardless, a terrorist act has been discarded as no elements of explosive devices were found at the scene...”

Meg was about to roll back to the couch and turn it off when the channel changed and the bouncy, energetic sounds of some cartoons came in in its place. Castiel stood next to the couch, with the remote control in one hand a box filled with cans of spray paint in the other.

“We need to talk about this, Eris,” he told her, as the little girl raised her eyes at him, confused and clearly upset. “But later.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Eris said, lowering her voice.

“I know you didn’t,” Castiel assured her, with a pat on her head. “And we’re not mad at you, I promise.”

He went towards Meg and handed her a can.

They worked silently for a couple of minutes, covering the walls with warding and protection sounds. Eris remained on the couch, quiet all of the sudden. At one point, she leaned over and took off her shoes, but other than that, she didn’t move. She didn’t watch the TV either: Meg could feel her gaze in the back of her head, following each one of her movements.

At one point, she stood up and walked towards her, as if she wanted to examine the wards that she was painting more closely.

“What are those?” she asked, pointing at them.

“Sumerian,” she said. “It’s a very old language. Don’t touch it!” she added quickly just as Eris stretched her hand towards it. “The paint is still fresh.”

Eris kept looking at the symbols, with a burrow between her eyebrows as if she was trying to decode them. When Meg finished putting up the spell against demons, she turned to Castiel, who had just done the same thing for angels. He turned around and nodded, signaling that they were safe.

For the time being, at least.

They sat down Eris down on the table. Meg wasn’t certain how they were going to explain this to her, but luckily for her, Castiel had some idea what they were supposed to say.

“Not all of the angels are like me,” he started explaining to Eris. “Some of them would do harm to humans, like Michael.”

“That’s the angel that took away Dean,” Eris said.

Castiel moved back on his chair. It was obvious he hadn’t talked to Eris about this, but she must have overheard him, Sam and Jack talking about it.

“He’s not just an angel, Eris. He’s an archangel. He’s very powerful, more so than me or your mother,” he continued telling her. “And he would hurt you if he were to find out about you. You need to be careful about how you use your powers.”

Eris listened to him attentively and nodded along, absorbing all of that information easily. She barely even asked any questions, instead insisting that she hadn’t meant to destroy the store or hurt anyone.

“I was just very upset,” she said, tears forming at the edge of her eyes again. “Why do you have to leave?” she added, turning towards Meg. “You’re supposed to be my mommy.”

Meg bit the inside of her cheek. One look at Castiel let her know that she was alone in having to justify that decision to their daughter.

“Just like your dad said, not all demons are like me,” she started saying. She stopped and had to think a way to keep going that wasn’t too confusing for the little girl. “Some of them would also harm people, or you. But they obey me, for now. I’m their Queen. However, I won’t be for long if I’m not there to keep an eye on them. Do you understand, Eris?”

Eris pursed her lips, as if she was going to start crying again, but she didn’t. She simply kept looking at Meg, as if she was waiting for the rest of the explanation.

But Meg simply didn’t know what else to tell her. She was experiencing all sort of new things… no, that wasn’t true. She supposed she must have experienced them in a past so long ago that she couldn’t remember it, that she didn’t _want_ to remember them. Because they were not fun feelings to have: guilt, fear, sadness. They were all bullshit and she wasn’t certain she wouldn’t trade them away for a chance to be once more a cruel, unfeeling demon that just followed the orders that she was given.

She couldn’t turn back time now. There was no one to give her a cause. She had chosen one for herself and it was sitting there in front of her, asking her to give her answers that Meg didn’t have.

“You don’t want me?” Eris asked, point blank.

“Of course it’s not that,” Meg assured her, with a sigh. She rubbed her eyes and understood why Castiel had looked so exhausted when she’d woken up. “It’s just… this is a very delicate situation, Eris. Nothing has turned out as planned.”

“I know that!” Eris exclaimed. She sounded incredibly frustrated. “That’s what you _have_ to stay!”

Meg ignored the first part of that statement, because she had the impression it was one of those things that Eris simply didn’t have the vocabulary to explain.

“You’re going to stay with your father,” she said, instead. “He’s going to teach you how to use your powers, how to defend yourself. Promise me that you’re going to try and learn everything he teaches you.”

Eris clearly wasn’t happy about that, request, but she sighed and nodded anyway.

“If I learn how to use them, are you going to come back?”

“Eris…” Meg started. “It’s not that simple.”

“Why _not_?”

“Because it’s not!” Meg said. Her exasperation was quickly eating away her already limited patience. “I have to protect you, to keep you safe, okay? That’s my job and that’s why I need to keep Hell under control.”

Eris opened her mouth, then closed it again. She looked close to tears, but she inhaled noisily and refused to cry.

“You don’t remember, do you?” she asked, lowering her voice.

“What?” Meg asked her, frowning. “What is it that I’m supposed to remember?”

Eris just clenched her jaw and stood up. She marched towards the couch and curled up on top of it, with her backs turned to the two of them.

So that didn’t turn out great.

“What?” she snapped at Castiel.

He said nothing, simply raised his hands and followed Eris to the couch.

“Eris?” he called her softly. “Do you want to have lunch? I can make you a sandwich…”

Eris simply shook her head and curled up even more.

Meg just couldn’t stand it anymore. The last thing she wanted was to be emotionally blackmailed by a little girl who had no idea what was best for her. She turned her chair around and rolled towards the door. Of course the porch had steps, but Meg simply teleported her chair down and let it roll away from the cabin over the soft grass.

Eris wasn’t doing it on purpose. She simply didn’t get that Meg was trying to do right by her, to protect her. She couldn’t blame her for being young and not understanding just how much was a stake if Meg didn’t have the power of Hell backing her up…

The door opened behind her.

“Wait!” Eris screamed. “Wait! I’m sorry! Come back!”

Meg turned her chair around just in time for Eris to run up to her and climb on her again.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Eris repeated, throwing her arms around Meg’s neck. “Please, don’t go!”

Meg stayed immobile for a second or two, far too shocked to do anything other than let the guilt wash over her once again. Goddammit, this was definitely not going to be easy.

She put her arms around Eris and cradled her against her chest. She could have sworn she was a little heavier than she had been earlier that morning.

“I wasn’t leaving.”

Eris moved away to scan her face.

“You weren’t?”

“No,” Meg assured her. “I wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye to you.”

Eris lower lip trembled again.

“But you _are_ going to leave,” she pointed out.

It was like arguing with a wall of bricks. Or with Castiel, Meg realized.

“I don’t _want to_ , Eris. But I have to,” she told her daughter, brushing aside a dark curl that had fallen over her face. “Do you believe that? Can you believe me?”

Eris lowered her eyes for a moment. She was crying again, the tears rolling silently down her cheeks, as if she was making a supreme effort not to start screaming again.

“Okay,” she accepted with a broken voice. “But can you stay just for a little while? Please?”

Meg sighed. Deep in her guts, she knew that if she said yes, then it’d be harder when she finally went back to Hell. It would make it harder for Eris as well, not to mention Castiel. Why the hell did the both of them have to go and make it that much difficult?

Then again, she had told Talbot that she was going to be away for a while. She had some time to spare and how else was she supposed to spend it?

“Very well,” she accepted with a sigh. “Just for a while.”

It was like seeing the sun part its way amongst the clouds: Eris face lit up and her smile, full of small white teeth, became wider.

She climbed down of Meg’s lap and lead the way back to the cabin, without even looking over her shoulder. Completely certain that Meg would be following close behind.

 

* * *

 

Three days, Meg told herself. She was going to stay only three days. In Hell that was a little less than a year, not counting the couple of days that she had already spent having Eris and then recovering from that, so she was still within the time frame she had given Talbot. But after those three days, she was going to leave for sure to check that everything was running smoothly herself.

Three days and not a single one more.

But as the time in her self-imposed deadline began running, she realized that it wasn’t going to be enough for either of them.

Eris had, as Castiel had told her, a voracious appetite. She devoured junk food and ice cream with the same gusto as she did the chicken and boiled vegetables Castiel put in her plate. She made a face, but ate them anyway, as if she was too hungry all the time to complain much about the taste.

And Castiel’s theory about her burning energy from food to grow up seemed correct, as in those three days, Eris grew several inches, to the point that the dress that she had been wearing was soon far too short to barely cover her legs, so Castiel had to drive away to find her new clothes. He made sure to buy it a couple sizes bigger so it would last longer.

Eris found this hilarious. She would run around the cabin, waving the long sleeves and pulling up her baggy pants. She was constantly barefoot, because she kept outgrowing her shoes in a matter of hours and her long black hair kept growing and growing, to the point that they had to cut it at least a couple of times once it got waist length.

By the end of the three days, she could have passed for an eight years old girl easily.

“I’m not done growing yet,” she commented sometimes, looking at the clothes that no longer fit her. “I wonder when I’ll be.”

“Can’t you stop it?” Meg asked her. “Or maybe slow it down a little bit?”

Eris tilted her head at her, as if it was the first time she thought of that question.

“I guess I could try,” she conceded. “But there’s so much to do…”

“What do you have to do?”

As she did ever so often. Eris shook her head and left that question unanswered. Whenever either Meg or Castiel asked her about something she said that they found odd, Eris would smile and told them they were silly or ask if she could watch some TV or if there were more pages where she could draw. She did this a lot and her drawings improved almost at the same speed as she grew. From barely recognizable stick figures, she started making small houses and trees, adding details such as leaves and birds and grass.

Sometimes she would draw Castiel with a comically oversized halo around his head and a pair of wings springing from his back. This time they looked a little more symmetrical, and she had taken the time to draw each feather individually.

“I drew them like mine. I know yours aren’t like that right now,” she told him, holding the drawing up for him to see. “But they will be one day again.”

Meg had questions about that statement, like how could she be so sure about that, but she realized that it would stay answered, just like every other question she had for their daughter. Castiel, on his side, was almost moved to tears when he got the drawing.

“Thank you,” he muttered, his deep voice breaking a little bit. “I do hope that they’ll be like that again, too. And maybe we can go see some nice places together.”

Eris smiled. There were little hollow spaces between her teeth now, as she had started losing some of them.

“I’d like that, daddy.”

She did like to fly, which was going to be problem the better she got at it. She moved at the same speed of light accompanied by a fluttering sound as Castiel had when he was fully powered-up, so even for Meg it was hard to follow her movements. Luckily for them, she could only teleport short distances, so it wasn’t hard to find her whenever they took a stroll around the woods that surrounded the cabin.

One time they both lost sight of her for about five minutes. Meg had been tortured, she had been exorcised, she had suffered all sort of terrible, anguishing dangers. And she could swear that she had never in her life been as scared as she’d been then.

“Eris?” she called out, as the wheels of her chair got tangled in the roots and she cursed under her breath.

“Eris, where are you?!” Castiel called, his eyes opened wide in a panic expression.

“I’m up here!”

She was perched on top of a very thick branch, her feet hanging in the air as she looked far away as if it was the most fascinating thing in the entire universe.

“These woods are so big!” she commented. “Where do they end?”

“Eris, come back down right this instant!” Meg ordered her.

Eris startled, but she did as she was told, landing in front of them in a second. She lowered her mismatched eyes to the ground.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized, though Meg was certain she didn’t know exactly what she had done. She apparently had learned that was the thing she needed to say so they would stop being mad at her, the little sociopath.

Castiel was far more patient with her than Meg was sometimes. He sank on one knee, not caring if his clothes got dirt on it or not, and gently grabbed Eris by the shoulders to make sure she was paying attention to him.

“Eris, you need to be more careful than that,” he told her, gently. “You know that there are people and… things that aren’t people that would harm you.”

“The other angels?” Eris asked, frowning. “I haven’t heard them in a while.”

“They have probably stopped communicating via those wavelengths when they realized we could hear them,” Castiel said. “So we need to be even more careful now, for we don’t know where they are or what they’re doing.”

Meg thought that explanation was going to be a little too complex for her, but Eris nodded with a serious expression in her face.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, and at least this time, she sounded like she meant it.

It wasn’t entirely true that they didn’t know what the other angels were up to. Jack, Mary and Sam called Castiel regularly to let him know what they were up to.

“There are probably watching over Lebanon to see if they can catch another disturbance. Michael knows that is where the bunker is, so it’s not safe to go back there right now,” Sam informed them. “But other than that, it has been pretty quiet.”

“Do you think he might be planning an attack?” Castiel asked.

“I think he might be playing it safe. He doesn’t know what the disturbance was and he doesn’t want to risk it. In any case, we’re headed to Sioux Falls now. Jody caught wind of something that might be able to help us.”

“Very well,” Castiel said and the he lowered his voice. “Do you need me to…?”

“Nah, man, don’t worry about it. We got this. You stay with your family.”

Meg was making a sandwich for Eris in the kitchen, pretending she wasn’t eavesdropping on that conversation, but she had to stop in the middle of spreading some peanut butter on a slice of bread when she heard that.

A family. Was that what they were?

“Very well. Be careful, Sam.”

“Where’s Sioux Falls?” Eris asked, as Meg turned her chair around and settle the plate in front of her.

“In North Dakota.”

Eris took out the old road maps that Castiel had found for her and examined them carefully until she placed it. She pointed her finger at it and smiled to herself, satisfied.

“Are you trying to learn where everything is?” Meg asked her, amused.

“Yes. So it’d be easier to fly there if I have to.”

“Alright, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Meg replied, ruffling Eris’ hair.

The only thing more voracious than her hunger was her curiosity. She constantly asked questions about how this or that worked: the sky, the plants, the water. Along with clothes, Castiel brought educational books from his excursions to the nearby town, which Eris read and re-read (when she learned how to do that, Meg wasn’t quite sure) over and over until she had retained all of the information they could offer to her. Sometimes she nodded along as she read, as if what she was finding out confirmed exactly what she’d thought from the beginning. And then extrapolated that to her reality.

“So when we transform something, are we engaging with its atoms? How much energy do souls contain? Are graces likes souls, only more powerful?”

Meg was glad that Castiel was there to answer those questions. He didn’t talk down on her and he was happy to repeat any information that Eris need clarification or further information on.

“Ghosts are disembodied souls that have enough energy and a will that guides them, but overtime they lose their sense of self. Demons… they are souls as well, only… changed,” he explained to her.

Eris nodded, to indicate that she was paying attention.

“So demons are more powerful than a human soul or a ghost,” Eris said. She stopped for a second and then tilted her head. “Which means even if Jack still had his grace, I’d be more powerful than him even though he’s taller, right? I could take him out in a fight.”

Castiel stared at her with eyes wide open while Meg burst into laughter. The kid definitely had the right idea about learning her limits.

“You’re not going to fight Jack, though,” Castiel told her. “He’s your family.”

“Didn’t you fight against the other angels even though they’re your brothers and sisters?”

“That is not… we’re getting off subject,” Castiel protested, as Meg laughed even harder. “Who told you that?”

Eris shrugged, as if Castiel’s story was one of those things she claimed to just “know”.

As busy as Eris kept them, she did manage to go to sleep for a few hours at a time some nights. Meg suspected that was part of the same process that made her a never-ending eating machine and when she was done growing, she would be like her and Cas in that she wouldn’t need sleep at all.

In fact, she already suspected she didn’t need it, which was why it surprised her when she returned from collecting some wood in the clearing behind the cabin and found Eris sound asleep on the couch. She was using the armrest as a pillow and one of her educational books was opened over her chest, her little hands still holding unto it.

“Eris?” Meg called out, rolling over towards her and leaning over her face.

Eris groaned and turned around, indicating she didn’t want to be disturbed.

So Meg did something she didn’t know she had it in herself to do. She had no idea if someone had done this for her a long, long time ago or if she’d done for another kid in a different life she’d lead. She guessed there was no point in thinking about it anyway, but she still did as she laid the blanket on top of Eris and tucked her in tightly.

Afterwards, Meg stayed next to her, watching her chest raise and fall with every deep breath she took. In moments like that, she really looked like she was just a little girl, though if Meg adjusted her view, she could see something shining and swirling right beneath her, something strange and powerful and… familiar.

That was the strangest thing of all. Maybe it was because she’d grown inside her and Meg had given birth to her, but she felt as if she’d known Eris from even before that, from the first time she’d dreamed about her and suspected of her presence inside of her womb…

Castiel strode inside, cutting her train of thoughts. Meg lifted her head and placed a finger against her lips. He looked down at Eris sleepy face and left the groceries he’d gone to buy on the table. Meg helped him to put them away. Hell, this was such a normal and human thing to do she almost felt nauseous. She should’ve felt nauseous.

She would’ve, she decided, if she had been doing all those things with anyone other than Castiel.

Castiel moved to pick up the crayons and pencils spread over the table, but Meg placed a hand on his wrist before he could reach for them. He stopped, as if her touch had given him an electric shock and slowly turned his eyes towards her.

They had barely touched each other, except for those rushed kisses when Meg had just returned to earth. Meg was beginning to think that maybe he was over screwing the demon, but the second his eyes set on her, even though his face remained the same, his pupils grew dilated with a lust he couldn’t hide.

Good.

“Meg?” he asked as Meg pulled from him to sit down on the chair so they would be face to face.

She moved gently, as if she was trying to catch an easily-scared bird. She put her hand on his cheek and waited until Castiel’s eyelids fluttered close before she pressed her mouth against his. Slowly, questioning.

He let out a shaky breath and leaned closer to her, catching her lower lip in his teeth to nibble them, fierce and firm, the way he knew Meg liked to be kissed. He placed a hand on top of her thigh and the other around her waist, pulling her up just a little from her chair.

That was all the confirmation Meg needed.

“Let’s go to bed,” she whispered.

Castiel’s gaze wandered towards the couch. Eris hadn’t moved.

“What if she… what if she wakes up?” he asked, in the same soft tone.

“We’ll tell her we’re playing Twister,” Meg said, rolling her eyes. “Come on, Clarence. It’s been ages for me.”

She placed a hand on his tie and toyed with it, threatening to pull it undone. Castiel swallowed loudly and Meg didn’t have to reach down to know all this closeness was getting to him.

But he was still resisting, the damn boy scout.

“We… I mean… we can’t…” he babbled.

Meg rolled her chair backwards to get away from him.

“Well, I’m gonna go to bed,” she announced. “And I’m going to take off all my clothes. You’re welcome to join me, if you want.”

Honestly, she needn’t have tried so hard. She had barely taken off her jeans and shirt when Castiel walked inside the room and closed the door behind him. There was barely a hint of blue in his eyes when he raised them at her as he loosened up his tie and his pants were definitely looking tighter than they should have.

“We need to be quiet,” he warned her still.

Meg unclasped her bra and threw it aside.

“We’ll be quiet as mice.”

It wasn’t until hours later, when they were laying underneath the covers, with one of Castiel’s arms lassoed around her waist and his nose sank in her hair that Meg realized just exactly how much she’d missed this. Not the sex… well, not _just_ the sex, because that managed to be consistently spectacular. But this… intimacy. This quiet peace of knowing that they were together and safe in each other’s arm, that though the world kept spinning outside, though demons and angels and humans all kept scheming… they could make a pause and just be.

“What is it?” Castiel asked her when she turned around to watch his face. His stubble was always rough against her skin. Meg caressed it slowly, trying to memorize its texture.

“Nothing,” she muttered, leaning over to kiss him again.

She still had two days left of her self-imposed deadline, and she wanted to make sure she made the most of them.

 

* * *

 

On the sundown of the third day, Meg stood outside of the porch, staring at the blood red sun as it sank in the distance.

She couldn’t keep postponing it. She knew if she did, if she looked back, she might as well never leave.

“Eris, come here.”

Eris had been unusually quiet, sitting at the table and making drawings. It was as if she knew, without anyone telling her, that Meg was about to leave and it made her moody.

She still stood up and obediently walked up to her. Her hair had become a cascade of black curls that she’d tied up in a ponytail and she was wearing a new dress that had started at knee-length but was already halfway through her thighs. In another day or two, she would’ve completely outgrown it.

“Yes, mom?”

Meg wasn’t sure why she’d stopped calling her “mommy”, but she didn’t want to ask. She was half-certain that the answer would break her heart. She patted her knee and after a second of hesitation, Eris climbed up and curled up on her lap. She was still small enough for that.

“You know I wouldn’t leave you if I had a choice, right?”

“I know,” Eris replied, with a sigh. She then looked up as if she’d just had an idea: “Can I come with you?”

“You wouldn’t like it there,” Meg said.

“But I’d be with you. I’d be safe.”

“You don’t think your dad can keep you safe?”

Eris buried her face in Meg’s neck.

“Maybe for now. But things will change.”

That was one of her usual cryptic answers and Meg decided there was no point in breaking over her skull trying to understand it.

“They’re always changing. You have changed a lot in these last couple of days,” she pointed out. “You’ll keep changing. And you’ll be ready for whatever comes your way.”

Eris said nothing. She just watched the sunset with her, until they heard Castiel’s car pull up on the dirt road.

And Meg knew it was time.

Castiel knew it too, because as soon as he walked up to them, carrying the groceries in their bags, and took one look at them, his face fell down. He set the bags down and gently grabbed Eris from her arms. The little girl allowed him too, but she kept watching Meg with her strange eyes while she teleported her chair past the steps.

“Goodbye, mommy,” she muttered.

Meg squeezed her little hand one more time before she turned her chair and rolled away from them. Pretending she didn’t notice Castiel’s eyes boring on the back of her head and Eris strangled sob.


	6. Chapter 6

She appeared directly into the throne room, which she found pleasantly empty. That gave her enough time to breath in a couple of times. It felt like there were two sides of her: the side that held her heart, which had stayed topside with Castiel and Eris, and the side she needed to show at all times what she was in Hell. The bitch, the demon, the Queen of Hell. She needed to be that right now.

The doors opened and Talbot and Guy sauntered in.

“… the contracts say we have to let ten years pass by, but we can cut that time in half if we…”

His words died down when they both noticed her. They halted her, as if they were surprised to see her there.

“Your Majesty,” Talbot was the first to react. “You didn’t… announce yourself.”

“Do I have to when I come back to my own kingdom?” Meg asked, quirking an eyebrow. “What were you talking about?”

“Well… Guy, here, has this interesting plan to collect souls that have been sold to us through deals.”

By the way she said it, it sounded like she didn’t approve of it, but she wanted someone with a higher authority to shut the plan down.

Guy shrunk away a little when Meg turned her attention towards him. It was nice to feel feared again, even if it was by scammers like Guy.

“Yes, I was just telling Talbot… if we… orchestrate some accidents through…”

“Killing them before their ten years are up, is that it?” Meg interrupted him.

“Well, I wouldn’t… essentially… yes,” Guy babbled.

“No.”

“But your Majesty…”

“I said no,” Meg repeated. “Don’t think I don’t know that was the reason Crowley put you back on the rack in the first place. The guy was a smarmy dick, but he had the right idea this time: we bring unwanted attention to ourselves, we can kiss our deals goodbye. So, we’re not doing that.”

Guy pursed his lips in a way that made Meg think that she hadn’t heard the last of this argument.

“Of course. As you say, my Queen,” he said despite this. He spun on his heels.

“Did I give you permission to leave?” Meg asked.

Guy halted where he was, a shiver running down his spine.

“I’m sorry. I thought we were done…” he mumbled.

“Next time you make me waste my time with plans like this, I’m going to hang you in my garden,” Meg threatened him. “And I’m not going to torture you. I’m just going to leave you there for a century or two until you’ve learned your place.”

The fear on Guy’s face was palpable. He bowed again and opened his mouth, but no sound came from it. That was exactly how Meg liked it.

“Now you can go.”

She didn’t need to tell him twice. Guy practically ran out of the room. Meg gestured towards the door so they’d closed themselves and turned her attention to Talbot. She was still wearing the same blonde as before, but she’d changed into a form-fitting dress that made her thing that she’d been out making deals recently.

“Thank you for that.” Talbot giggled. “He has been pestering me about this brilliant plan for months. I kept telling to wait until you came back.”

“You should have shut it down from the start,” Meg told her.

She didn’t mean for it to come out snappy, but that was the way it must have sounded, because Talbot’s posture tensed up.

“Yes. I will make sure to do that next time.”

Meg sighed and pinched her nose.

“Gather everyone. I want to know how things have been here in my absence.”

Five minutes later, her council was together, informing her that everything had been business as usual down there. Leon had found two promising demons that he was training as torturers, the rate at which they were making deals was going steady, whatever Guy said, and there were several witches lining up to borrow power from them.

“Make sure they don’t get too big with their little tricks,” Meg said. “I don’t want any hunters catching drift of them.”

The other demons looked at each other, in what she supposed they thought were sneaky glances.

“What?” she inquired.

They all suddenly stared down, avoiding eye contact with her as if she was a mean teacher who was about to start calling names for a lesson none of them had studied with. That was nice, but not quite the effect Meg was looking for.

“I asked a question,” she said, raising her voice.

That managed to make some of them shake.

“My… my queen,” Marleen spoke finally. “With all due respect… it’s not that we don’t appreciate the importance of prudence, but… maybe… making a bolder move wouldn’t be…”

Her voice trailed off as Meg glared at her. She grinned, but her real objective was to show them all her teeth. It was a threatening gesture.

“Oh, of course. You want to talk about bold moves? I’ve noticed none of you has asked about my Cambion.”

Leon swallowed and Guy lowered his eyes. They had all clearly wondered about it, but they hadn’t there to ask about it.

“That was a bold move of mine and I regret to admit it failed. I had the little brat, but two days later, angels caught whiff of it, just like I said they would. Do you want to know what they did to it? ‘Cause it was brutal even by our standards.”

The lie rolled off easily from her tongue. It was better to tell it now, to avoid further questions about it in the future.

And the demons seemed appropriately horrified. It was if killing a two days old baby was a limit even they wouldn’t dare to cross.

Beginners.

“Michael is experimenting on monsters, trying to get them to be more efficient at killing humans, but he’s keeping an ear to the ground and will come for us if we give him a reason to. The hunters have their hands full with that mess, especially Sam Winchester, which is a name I presume all of you are familiar with?”

No one denied it. Guy flinched and Talbot shifted in her seat. Perhaps they’d had the bad luck of personally running into Sam, which didn’t explain how they’d survived that. Leon and Marleen merely nodded, as if they knew Sam by reputation and that was enough for them.

“So, my little excursion topside has taught me a thing.” Meg stared at every one of them slowly, to make sure the next words she said really sank into their thick skulls: “Now it’s not the time to be making bold moves. We’re going to stay out of this. We let Michael and Sam duke it out… and then, we fight whichever of the two comes for us. Have I made myself clear?”

“Yes, your Majesty,” Talbot answered for all of them.

Meg adjourned the meeting and sent them all back to what they were doing. If it wasn’t broken, she wasn’t going to try and fix it.

She went back to the throne room and stopped in front of it, thinking if she should leave her chair for it. But she wasn’t taking any audiences today and what would be the point? Damn, she should have brought a magazine with her or something. Perhaps she should just go down to her garden, find herself some poor slob and get to torturing to distract herself…

Someone cleared their throat behind her. She wasn’t surprised to see Talbot when she turned around. She was the only one bold enough to follow her in there and try to engage on a conversation with her.

Meg snapped her fingers and materialized a chair next to her. She hated to talk to people when they were towering over her and Talbot looked like she had a lot of things to say to her.

The crossroads demon sat down and crossed her legs in front of her. Meg noticed the way her dress’ skirt hitched up as she did.

“Did the angels really kill your Cambion?” she asked, point blank.

Instead of flying into a rage for questioning her, Meg decided to sigh.

“Why would I lie about something like that?”

Talbot managed to looked appropriately commiserated.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why, though? It wasn’t really my kid,” Meg said, trying to sound detached. “It was just a means to an end. It failed. Now I have to find another means.”

“Still… you carried her for nine months,” Talbot pointed out. Meg was surprised she remembered a detail as seemingly insignificant as the baby’s gender. “You must have been… saddened, when it happened.”

Meg threw her head back and laughed. She remembered whenever she said something that would amuse Azazel, how he made her feel naïve and insignificant for not being sure what exactly she’d said that was so funny.

“See, that’s the problem with you, new demons,” Meg said, smiling at Talbot’s disconcerted expression. “You were hastily made; you weren’t quite stripped of everything that tied you to your human side. You think we’re supposed to react in human ways to things like these.”

Talbot lowered her gaze for a moment, as if she was reflecting on what Meg had said. She uncrossed her legs and crossed them again. It was impossible to tell if she did it because she was uncomfortable or she needed to gain time.

Or maybe some other reason.

“Still,” Talbot said raising her eyes at her. “You must feel something.”

She had chosen a very attractive vessel, no doubt. She had high cheeks and the cutest little nose, and the way she postured herself, with her back very straight and her shoulders back, made her breasts, constraint by the small dress, pop out.

Meg didn’t know if she was reading those signs right, but if she had been any other person, she would have thought Talbot was coming on to her.

“You must… want something,” Talbot said, leaning over. Her hand came to rest softly over Meg’s thigh and yes, she was definitely coming onto her.

If this had happened a few years’ prior, Meg wouldn’t have said no. It wasn’t like she had type. She liked Talbot well enough, she was funny and her meatsuit was attractive. (As to far as what was underneath, well, Meg had no room to judge). She would have taken her to bed to please herself and not worry too much if Talbot really cared for her or if she was just willing to do this because Meg was the Queen and being her lover would definitely have its perks. Hell, she would have even congratulated Talbot for taking an initiative like that.

And why wouldn’t she do it now? She was probably going to be back in Hell for at least a few years. That was a long time to go without anyone to entertain herself with. It wasn’t like she was married to Castiel or something, it wasn’t as if she’d promise him anything. He would never find out. It would mean absolutely nothing.

He wouldn’t see it like that, though. And she would be pretty pissed if she came back and found out that Castiel had been cozying up to someone else in her absence.

So, promise or not, it just wasn’t fair.

She was probably failing at everything demonic by thinking like that, but she still reached down, grabbed Talbot’s hand and removed it from her thigh.

“You know what I want?” she asked. “I want this place running like a well-oiled machine. If you can’t help me do that without getting… distracted, then maybe you’re not the demon I thought you were.”

Talbot pulled back. If she was offended by Meg’s rejection, she did a good job at hiding it.

“I hear you, boss,” she said, smiling. “Is there anything else you need?”

Meg crossed her arms over her chest.                          

“No. That will be all. You can go.”

Talbot stood up and Meg heard her heels clacking away. The throne room’s doors slammed closed behind her.

Meg sighed deeply and leaned back on her chair, breathing in slowly.

It was going to be some very, very lonely years.

She managed to keep herself distracted easily enough.

Despite the few provisions she’d made when she first took the throne, there was still a lot to do. Within a year, Leon had presented to her some people who were willing to take up the blade: a man who had been a “doctor” in his lifetime but was actually more interested in studying the limits of the human body, a couple of mobsters and gang members, some sadists who took pleasure in inflicting pain to others.

She judged them the same way that Alastair would have: wondering if they were just coming off the rack to save their own skin or if they really enjoyed inflicting pain. Some past the test of enduring a torture session with her, some didn’t and had to go back to the rack. But she was well on her way to training the next generations of torturers.

It wasn’t all fun and blood, of course. Creating new demons was one part art, one part math and Crowley, if anything, had been very efficient at the numbers part. Looking at the impending deals that wouldn’t be up until almost five more years topside, Meg was almost tempted to go with Guy’s suggestion and just start collecting early. But she wasn’t that desperate.

The spies she kept sending up took months to come back, though it would only have been a few days for them.

“The situation has changed very little, your Majesty. The angels are still waging war against the humans and…” The demon who was bringing him this report stopped.

Meg, who had had been listening to him while lounging on her throne, opened her eyes.

“And?”

“We… we didn’t know Michael was possessing Dean Winchester,” he concluded.

Meg sat up at that.

“Did you see him?” she asked. “And more importantly, did he see you?”

“No. I passed myself off as a hunter,” the demon explained. “The gossip I heard indicates that Sam Winchester and the Nephilim are looking for some kind of weapon. A lance of some kind, brought on from another universe.”

“Another universe?” Meg repeated.

“That’s what they said,” the demon replied. “I didn’t think such a thing was possible, but one of the hunters claim to have come from one such universe. The same universe that Michael came from. They said the Nephilim could open portals to them and that the weapon they’re looking for came from one them.”

Last time Cas had talked to them, Sam and Jack were on their way to Sioux Falls. Maybe that was what they were going to look for.

“But the Nephilim is de-powered, so I don’t know how they expect to manage it,” her spy concluded.

“If I know the Winchesters, and I do,” Meg said, “they’ll find a way.”

She dismissed him with a gesture. Apparently the gossip about the angels and Michael and the Winchesters was so prevalent among hunters that none of them had heard anything about a half-angel, half-demon child or about Castiel.

That was good. It meant that he was managing to keep Eris hidden. Which was precisely what she had asked him to do.

Still, she would have killed to have even an ounce of news about them, even a whisper or a rumor. Something to know that they were fine. Sometimes, when she was alone in the throne, she almost had to physically stop herself from going topside and teleporting to the cabin with them.

She wanted to ran her fingers through Eris hair, see how much she’d changed since Meg had last seen her, what other surprises she had in store. She wanted to kiss Castiel and lay with him under the covers and listen to his voice saying all sorts of stupid shit in her ear. There weren’t any nights in Hell, as it was stuck in a permanent twilight and that was lucky for her. Because sometimes she felt her longing for them like a physical pull.

“So that Michael is from another dimension?” Talbot asked, after the report.

Meg had turned down her advances, but she still liked to have her around to talk sometimes. She was the only one in all of Hell that had something smart to say. She seemed to have heard the message loud and clear because today she wasn’t wearing a sexy dress, but a pair of jeans and white blouse. Meg supposed she must have stolen it from a high end boutique in her last trip topside. Talbot seemed to have a taste for the finer things in life, along with a certain curiosity for how things worked in Hell before her time.

“What happened to the Michael from this one?”

“We’re sitting on top of him,” Meg said.

Talbot swallowed and looked down, as if she could physically see the Cage that burned in the deepest bowels of Hell.

“Don’t worry, they locked him away and threw the key,” Meg assured her. “And they were smart enough to not take him out as well when they brought Lucifer up for another round.”

Talbot went quiet for a few seconds after Meg said that.

“I… I was here when that happened,” she admitted, with a shiver. “The first time around, I was still on the rack, still… changing. But the second, I was already working under Crowley’s orders. I got to see him and he was…”

“He was something else, wasn’t he?” Meg asked, softly.

She didn’t like to think about Lucifer. It had been amazing, to be in his presence, her creator, her God. Her plan in Azazel’s plan to release him had wavered sometimes, especially after Dean Winchester had put a bullet in her brother’s head, but to see Lucifer actually in front of her…

“He was formidable,” Talbot admitted. “And terrifying.”

“Oh, he was a rockstar and he had practically every single demon in Hell throwing themselves at him like nymphomaniac groupies,” Meg said.

The comparison elicited a chuckle from Talbot.

“Including you?” she asked.

Meg wasn’t about to deny that. Turns out she did have a type after all: powerful angels that could smite her with a touch of their hand.

“I would’ve done anything he asked of me,” she admitted freely. “I would’ve followed him into battle, kill for him, die for him.”

“But?”

Meg chewed the inside of her cheek. Talking about when her faith in Lucifer had begun wavering as well meant talking about Castiel.

_“He believes Lucifer is just using demons to achieve an end, and that, once he does, he'll destroy you all.”_

_“You're wrong. Lucifer is the father of our race. Our creator. Your god may be a deadbeat. Mine—mine walks the earth…”_

She could still remember that crumpled room, the heat of the flames from the holy fire… then the heat from Castiel’s embrace, almost loving as he pressed his hand on her forehead, the rush of adrenaline as she prepared to die and then the relief when she didn’t.

_“You can't gank demons, can you? You're cut off from the home office and you ain't got the juice. So what can you do, you impotent sap?”_

She really thought for a moment that he was going to kiss her. That he’d fallen that low. That she could convince him to accept Lucifer’s offer to join his cause.

And then he’d thrown her down in the fire.

Not exactly what most people would classify as a meet cute.

“But nothing,” Meg said. “He was my father and it wasn’t my place to question his decisions.”

She wasn’t going to unload the fears and doubts that had plagued her when she saw what Lucifer had done in order to invoke Death on Talbot. Back then, she had buried them deep inside, because she couldn’t afford to have her faith shaken in that way.

She couldn’t afford to have her mission yanked away from her, even with the way that Lucifer had punished her after she’d failed to keep Castiel inside the circle.

Talbot let out a little laughter that made Meg turned to look at her closely.

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh, nothing.” Talbot shrugged. “I just can’t imagine you following anyone’s orders without questioning them.”

Meg opened her mouth… but she immediately forgot what she was going to say.

The walls around them shook and some debris from the roof fell on the floor. Talbot stood up, looking around her with alarm.

“What’s that?”

Meg opened her mouth to tell her she wasn’t sure… when she felt it. Deep in her stomach, like a claw sinking inside of her intestines, relentless and insistent. The only reason she could resist it was because it wasn’t as intense as it could have been.

“I’m… I’m being summoned…” she muttered, astonished.

That wasn’t possible. The only demons that could summon her…

The room shook again and the pull became stronger. Meg had to use every ounce of her will to resist the call. Whoever was calling her, they weren’t simply trying to invoke a random nearby demon or even the Queen of Hell.

No. They wanted to talk to her, specifically.

How were they doing this?

“What shall we do?”

Meg gritted her teeth.

“You’re coming with me,” she decided. “And we’re going to find what is it that they want and then slit their damn throats.”

She grabbed Talbot by the arm and this time when the pull came, she just let it guide her.

In retrospective, she should have suspected that brining Talbot along wasn’t the greatest idea. She had been so freaked out and angry because the person invoking her was using that kind of demanding magic on her that she didn’t stop to think who could it possibly be.

Her question wasn’t answered immediately. Talbot and her appeared in what seemed to be an abandoned factory somewhere, with graffiti and scribbles on the walls and planks of wood spread everywhere. A cloud of dust raised underneath her when Meg commanded her chair to move forwards, with Talbot trailing close behind.

“What’s this dumpster?” she asked, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

It did seem like a dumpster, like a place where generations of bored teenagers had come to shoot the shit or do stuff they couldn’t do at home. Summon demons, for example.

There was a golden light flickering around the corner. Meg followed her, along with the sensation that this was the place where she was being commanded to be.

What she saw confused her beyond measure. Someone had gone through the trouble of building up an altar, with black candles and all. There was a rabbit hanging upside down from a beam, its throat slit and its blood dripping down into a copper bowl placed on the floor.

There was a girl with long dark hair leaned against it, softly whispering words in Latin.

“Did you summon me, girl?” Meg asked, in what she hoped was her most threatening voice.

However, when the girl stood up and turned towards her, her little round face lightening up, she immediately realized that nothing she ever did was going to be enough to scare her.

“It worked!” she said, as if she was amazed that was the case.

She appeared to be thirteen, maybe fourteen years old. She was wearing ripped jeans and black leather jacket on top of an oversized shirt with a faded Led Zeppelin logo. Her hair cascaded in loose curls over her shoulders and she smiled as she settled her mismatched eyes on Meg: one blue, one dark brown.

Meg froze as she tried to reconcile what she was seeing with what she remembered.

“Eris?”

Her daughter’s lip quirked up in a smirk.

“Hi, mom.”


	7. Chapter 7

Talbot was the first one to recover her power of speech.

“I’m sorry, _mom_?”

Meg didn’t have the time, nor the desire to answer to that question. She focused on Eris for the time being.

“What are you doing?”

“I wanted to talk to you,” Eris said, as if she’d just called Meg on her cellphone instead of sacrificing a rabbit and using hardcore dark magic to pull her out from the very bowels of Hell.

“You…” Meg was at a loss for words, so she shook her head to give herself a second to think. “How did you summon me?”

“Oh, it was easy.” Eris moved to the side to pick up a big, leather-bound book that she’d left to the side. “I found this grimoire in the bunker’s library…”

“No, I mean, how did you summon _me_?”

Eris scoffed and rolled her eyes, the same way she did when she was a kid and she thought Meg was saying something “silly”.

“I used your name.”

Meg knew that was the only logical answer to that. Only someone using a demon’s real name, not the name they took for themselves, but the name they had when they were alive and human, could result in a pull so powerful. She knew this because, despite her not remembering her name, Azazel knew it and would use that very same spell to call her if he considered it urgent enough.

“You don’t know my name.”

“Of course I know your name,” Eris replied. “You’re my mother.”

“Yes, I’m still trying to wrap my head around that,” Talbot intervened. “I thought you said the Cambion had been killed by angels!”

“What Cambion?” Eris asked, throwing her head back. “And who are you?”

“Who are _you_?” Talbot shot back at her.

“Uh… I’m Eris?” she said, as if that was the obvious answer. “Your Queen’s daughter? So maybe you shouldn’t be talking to me like that…”

“Eris!” Meg interrupted her, snapping her fingers to get her attention back. “What is going on here? Where is your father?”

“ _Father_?” Talbot repeated, scandalized.

Meg took two seconds to considerate if she should kill Talbot before going any further with the conversation. She’d regret having to do it, but if it helped keeping Eris’ existence a secret…

Eris sighed and looked at the ceiling as if the answer was there.

“You’ve been gone for three and a half weeks and it’s been the worst!” she complained. “He won’t let me do anything! I’ve told him I could pass as human and go out and just… try different things, but he kept trying to keep me at the cabin and teach me all these things that I already knew how to do…”

“Training you,” Meg corrected her. “He’s been training you. Like I asked him to do.”

“Well, my training is done,” Eris declared.

“Says who?”

“Says me! I don’t want to do it anymore, so…” She toyed with the helm of her jacket for a few seconds before she added: “I thought I could… maybe go spend some time with you?”

“In Hell?”

“Well, yeah. Where else have you been?”

Meg took a few seconds to rub her temples.

“No.”

That frustrated Eris enough that she kicked the ground with her black combat boots, lifting another cloud of dust around her.

“Why not?”

“Because I say so!” Meg replied. “Now, let’s get you back home.”

“But I don’t want to go back there!” Eris protested. Her lower lip began trembling. “I thought you of all people would…”

She shook her head and then strode away past Meg and Talbot, heading directly for the exit.

“Eris!” Meg called her, turning her chair to go after her. “Eris!”

Her daughter refused to heed her. Talbot watched the scene, equal parts surprised and amused.

“Okay, I know it hasn’t been thirteen years up here,” she commented, as if that was the most confusing part of it all. “So what is going on?”

Meg glared at her for a second before she decided that losing Eris would be graver than having Talbot stick around to discover even more of her secrets.

“Eris!” she called again.

The night outside was clear and warm. Eris was leaning against the Impala’s hood, pouting with her arms crossed over her chest. Meg had to stop again to gander at that.

“Is that the Winchesters’ car?” she asked, even though she could see it with her very eyes.

“Yes,” Eris said, her eyes staring down at her shoes. “I stole it.”

“The Winchesters?” Talbot repeated. “As in, _the_ Winchesters?”

“Why did you steal the Winchesters’ car, Eris?” Meg asked, feeling an oncoming migraine growing in the back of her head.

“Dad grounded me.”

“He grounded you… _before_ you stole the car?”

“No, he…” Eris growled and pulled back the left sleeve of her jacket to show Meg something around her wrist. At first sight, it seemed like a little silvery charms bracelet, but it obviously wasn’t as Eris added: “He put this stupid Enochian spell on me. So I couldn’t fly away.”

Meg blinked a couple of times.

“Oh, he _grounded_ you.”

“It’s not funny, mom!”

Meg tried to control the giggles ascending to her throat. She managed it, but only just.

“Come on, it’s a little bit funny,” she argued.

Eris threw her a furious look at her that Meg was sure it would have intimidated a chicken that she was planning on eating or sacrificing for a spell, as it were the case. But Meg was past that sort of intimidation tactics.

“Eris, why are you doing all of this?” she asked. “You know I’m busy and you know there’s a lot…”

“Yes, yes, a lot of danger and Michael and the angels and whatnot,” Eris interrupted her, rolling her eyes again. “Geez, you sound just like dad.”

“Because he’s right!”

“Yeah, but that’s exactly why you should take me to Hell with you. They wouldn’t think of looking for me there.”

She was like a dog with a bone. Meg took a second to breathe deeply before she replied:

“I said no.”

She fully expected Eris to whine and protest some more. She wasn’t ready for the sadness she saw when Eris raised her eyes at her.

“That’s not fair,” she said. “Why do you get to decided that?”

Meg wasn’t sure how to answer to that question. She really had no clue what was she supposed to do now. Call Castiel? Let him be the authority in all of this?

No. That would only make Eris angrier, so she should try to calm her down and convince her to go to the bunker before getting to that point.

“Because I know Hell, Eris,” she said, lowering her voice so her words would have more of an impact on her. “It’s not a pretty place at all, and as your mother…”

“My mother!” Eris repeated, throwing her head back and letting out a wry laugh. “Yes, let’s talk about you being my mother. Why don’t we?”

Her tone got a little louder, just an octave, but that was enough to make the Impala’s windows vibrate as if someone had punched them. Whatever spells were in that bracelet, Castiel clearly hadn’t included one for keeping Eris’ voice down.

“Eris…” Meg began, as Talbot looked to either side, startled.

“You left me!” Eris argued, angrily. “You said you’d be back when you could, but it’s been weeks…!”

All of Meg’s good intentions of remaining calm and trying to calm down Eris as well flew out of the window at that precise moment.

“Do you have any clue how long it’s been for me?” she argued, with a scoff. “You think I haven’t missed you and your father? I left you with him, because he cares for you…”

“I know he cares!” Eris replied. Her voice was growing louder once again. “But he doesn’t understand! He doesn’t know who I am and what I have to do! You do!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about!” Meg replied, shaking her head. “If you don’t speak clearly…”

“I am speaking clearly! You’re not listening to me!” Eris shouted, stomping her foot on the ground.

It shook so violently that Meg had to hang to her chair’s armrest not to fall from it and Talbot almost ended on her knees. The Impala’s windows vibrated once again, threatening to break.

“That’s enough, Eris!” Meg said, moving her chair closer to her. “I’m taking you back before…”

“What is that?” Talbot asked.

Meg froze when she heard it too. A prolonged, high-pitched whistle that started soft and grew in intensity in the following seconds.

Eris face grew pale and her eyes opened wide in terror. Meg felt her stomach flipped, but she managed to keep her voice firm as she ordered:

“Eris, get in the car. Talbot…”

But before she could give another order, before any of them could even move, the archangel landed right in front of them.

It was strange. He was wearing Dean Winchester’s face, his body, but the moment his green eyes settled upon them, there was a coldness about them, a calm demeanor that had nothing to do with the angry hunter Meg had known.

He’d also changed his clothes: instead of the simple jeans and plaid shirt attire that Dean favored, Michael was donning an elegant three-piece suit tailored perfectly to his body. Meg found this easy to mock, because that was what she did when she was scared shitless. Queen of Hell or not, she didn't stand a chance against him.

“Well, hey, congratulations on having better taste in clothing than Dean-o,” she said, raising an eyebrow.

“Thank you,” the archangel said, pulling from his jacket as if he wanted to show off exactly how fancy it was. “I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced.”

“No need. Your reputation precedes you, Mikey.”

“As does yours.” He stopped for a second and tilted his head, as if he was hearing something, then looked at them again, beaming. “Meg. Dean seems to think you should be dead.”

“Well, Dean’s been out of the loop for a while,” Meg replied.

The weight of her angel blade inside of her sleeve was soothing, but she was still desperately looking for a way to get out of this without having to test if it would work against an archangel.

It probably wouldn’t.

“He has, but not me,” Michael said. His mannerisms, the way he held his head up, it was all so different from Dean that telling them apart would’ve been far too easy. It was still eerie to see that strange look in his eyes on such a familiar place. Meg figured it must have been a thousand times worse for Cas and Sam. “I have been paying close attention. Not a month ago, I heard something… loud. Powerful. Coming from a little town not far from here. Humans said it was a gas leak, but I knew better. It was angelic in origin and even though I got there too late to find out what it was, I didn’t forget. And now, tonight, I heard it again, what do I find?” He raised his hands at them: “A crossroads demons, the self-proclaimed Queen of Hell… and a little girl.”

Meg looked over her shoulder. Eris and Talbot had moved to stand behind her chair and Talbot had her arms draped around Eris shoulders, as if she wanted to protect her. Eris seemed like she was about to vomit.

“I can only imagine that you too felt compelled to come see what it was when you heard it. I’m sure every angel and demon in miles around heard it,” Michael said, with a little shrug. “So it’s only natural you were curious. But whatever she is, she is of no use to you.”

Meg raised an eyebrow. If angels and demons had heard it, that meant that perhaps Cas was on his way. And so were several other angels as well.

This could end really badly for everyone.

“So what do you suggest?” she asked, stalling until she could come up with something even remotely resembling a plan. Could they disappear? Not with Michael so close. He could pick up their trail and follow them.

“A deal. You must know all about them, of course.” Michael grinned. “You give me the girl… and I won’t smite you here and now.”

If it had been any other girl in the world, Meg might have found that completely reasonable, even with the undeniable possibility that Michael wouldn’t keep his word. But after taking one look over her shoulders, at Eris' terrified little face, her eyes fixed on the archangel… she knew she couldn’t do it.

“Sorry. Not interested.” Meg stretched her arm and let the blade fall easily on her hand. She raised it, a clear challenge as she said: “The girl’s mine.”

“Come on.” Michael chuckled. “What exactly are you planning on doing with her? Train her like one of your Hellhounds to go fetch you someone’s soul?”

“You misunderstand me,” she replied, with a smile. “The girl is _mine_. She is my daughter and you will have to kill me before putting your filthy paws on her.”

That managed to surprise him.

“Your daughter?” he repeated and shook his head. “No, that can’t be. That is no mere Cambion.”

“How are you so sure?”

“Because I know Cambions. I have killed hundreds of them before they could do any damage. What did you do to her? How did you get her to resonate with the Host?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Meg said. It was her turn to grin.

Michael’s eyes sparkled with fury. He clearly wasn’t used to being contradicted.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’ll discover it soon enough when I take her to my lab…”

Meg moved first, before Michael even have the chance to finish that sentence.

She wasn’t thinking that it could fail. She wasn’t thinking that it would hurt Dean as well.

An image of Eris strapped down to a cold, sterile table somewhere while Michael loomed over her with a blade in his hand flashed in Meg’s mind and that was all she needed.

She teleported closed to him, far too close, and sank the blade to the hilt straight into his stomach.

Michael’s skin glowed silver for a second or two and he stumbled backwards, growling in pain. But a second later, he recovered his balance and raised his eyes with pure fury at Meg.

“Alright,” he said, lowering his tone. He grabbed the blade and pulled it out, blood and silver grace gushing out of it in equals part, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Now it’s my turn.”

He launched himself towards Meg. She moved to try to avoid him, but he was too fast. His hand closed on her shoulder, an iron grip so tight that she heard her bones crackle underneath it. She let out a moan of pain as Michael kicked her chair away and yanked her down to the ground. Meg hit it face first and turned around to see the archangel standing over her, the blade raised high and ready to strike down…

“No!”

Eris seemed to appear out of nowhere. Michael was taller and stronger than her, but she jumped up and clasped her arms around his neck, pulling him back and choking him. Michael lost his balance and stepped away from Meg as Eris sank her nails unto his wrists, shaking him as she tried with all her might to get him to let go of the blade.

Meg took the chance to squirrel away and hanged unto her chair’s seat, trying to get back on it. Dammit, dammit, dammit…

Michael finally managed to shake Eris off, throwing her to the ground by her arm. Eris jumped to her feet and raised her fists, a challenging position that Michael recognized, because he raised his chin at her with renewed curiosity.

“Who taught you to fight?”

He still had the angel blade in his hand, but he forgot about it as Eris charged ahead so fast he couldn’t do anything to block the punch she threw at his stomach and then, when he doubled dover, to his jaw. Michael recovered from the hits quickly: he grabbed her wrist as she was going for another punch and twisted her arm until a loud crack echoed through the empty lot. Eris screamed out in pain.

Meg saw the blade flashing in Michael’s hand. She wasn’t going to get to them in time…

She raised her arm and put all her power, all her will, her very soul, twisted as it was, into the push she sent his way. Not towards him, not, but towards the blade, that suddenly flew out of his hand and to hers before he could strike down her daughter with it.

The distraction gave Eris enough time to stomp on Michael’s foot and pull away from him. Michael wouldn’t let go of her arm and Meg was already rolling towards them, not certain what she could do…

A loud roar came from the left.

Meg would later have time to wonder if the Winchesters had done something to the Impala or if the car was just built strongly enough to hit an archangel without getting destroyed in the process, but the moment it impacted against Michael, sending him flying away and throwing Eris down on the ground, all she could think was that she needed to get her daughter out of there.

Talbot seemed to have understood this was the priority as well, because the backseat doors were already open for them.

Meg leaned over, grabbed Eris by the collar of her jacket and pulled her up.

“Go, let’s go!”

Eris dove unto the backset without further prompting and so did Meg, leaving her chair behind.

She didn’t have time to regret it, as Michael was already scrambling back to his feet. He glared at them, his lips pulled back in a snarl, and stretched his hands towards them.

Talbot stomped on the accelerator and ran him over again. The archangel’s body rolled over the hood, clattered on the ceiling and slid off the trunk. The wheels squeaked against the pavement as they hit the road and drove away at a speed that would be considered mortally dangerous for any human.

Meg wasn’t worried about that, though.

“Eris,” she called out, cradling her face with one hand and running her fingers through her hair with the other. “Eris, your arm…”

Eris grimaced in pain as she held it up, but it quickly became a smile.

“It’s fine, mom,” she assured her. She moved the arm a couple of times more until it recovered its natural angle. “See? It’s healing already.”

Meg didn’t try to suppress her sigh of relief, even as fury washed over her almost at the same time.

“What were you thinking?!” she shouted. “That was an incredibly stupid thing to do! Going up against an archangel, unarmed?!”

Eris’ eyes grew wide and her mouth hanged opened, as if she was offended Meg was asking her this.

“He was going to kill you!” she screamed back. “What was I supposed to do, just stand back and watch?”

“You could have…!”

“Excuse me,” Talbot said. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but I’m sure Michael, you know, the archangel that wants us dead, is already recovering and poised to come after us. So I suggest we ditch this car and disappear off somewhere where he can’t follow us, yes?”

Meg took a second to grit her teeth.

“I need a phone.”

“Dad won’t let me have one,” Eris said.

“Talbot, check the glove compartment. They probably have like a dozen there. And keep driving.”

Talbot did as instructed and tossed one to Meg over her shoulder. She quickly typed up a number and pressed the phone against her ear, her heart beating fast as she did.

“Hallo?”

Meg contained another sigh of relief.

“Hello, Rowena. Listen, we need a place to hide.”

“As we all do these days, dearie,” the witch said in her thick Scottish accent. “Very well. Do you have a pen?”

Ten seconds later, Talbot stopped the car by the side of the road.

“Should we let Sam know that the car is here?” Eris asked.

“Of course. We’ll call him from Rowena’s place,” Meg said, opening the door. Talbot was already by her side, throwing one of her arms underneath hers to help her stand up. Eris moved quickly to grab her from the other side. A sudden realization dawned on her face.

“Mom, we left your chair…”

“I’ll get another one,” Meg said. “Now, let’s get out of here.”

In the blink of an eye, the empty secondary road and Kansas field disappeared around them. They were now several miles away: a busy corner in a Chicago street where no one really noticed the three of them appearing all of the sudden.

The doorman at the building where they were supposed to go eyed them with extreme suspicion and Meg couldn’t blame him: they weren’t hurt, but their clothes had taken the brunt of the damage, so they were covered head to toe with dirt and dust. She probably also looked like a drunk sailor, holding on between Talbot and Eris with all the grace of one.

They could just hit him and walk by, but Meg didn’t think that would endear themselves to the witch who was so generously letting them stay with her for the time being.

“We’re here to see Rowena MacLeod?”

The doorman pushed a button on the intercom.

“Mrs. MacLeod? There’s someone here…”

“Send up them up, Theo, thank you.”

The private elevator took them all the way up to the penthouse in a matter of minutes. The doors opened directly into a luxurious living room, with leather couches and a red carpet they trucked mud into as they walked inside.

Rowena didn’t seem to mind. She was standing on the other side of the room, holding a martini glass in her hand, her fiery red hair falling in waves around her face. She crooked an eyebrow at them as they stumbled inside.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in!” she commented. Eris and Talbot helped Meg sit down on the couch as the witch walked up to them. Her violet dress floated behind her elegantly. “The Queen of Hell, one of her minions and… well, I’ll be damned!” she exclaimed as her eyes settled on Eris. “My dear girl, look at you! You’re the most extraordinary thing I have ever seen!”

Without waiting for permission, she settled her glass on the coffee table and went straight to Eris. The witch grabbed Eris' chin and pulled her face up a little, as if she wanted to watch her mismatched eyes more closely.

“Umh… thank you?” Eris muttered, confused.

“Rowena, this is my…” Meg started, but Rowena interrupted her.

“I know who she is. She’s your daughter, the one you had with Castiel.”

“Castiel?” Talbot repeated. “The _angel_ Castiel? That’s her father?”

Meg took a second to breathe in deeply before she turned to look at Talbot. Liked it or not, the crossroads demon had become a little more than her second in command. She was her friend. And if she wanted to keep her trust, it was time she stopped lying to her.

“I think I have some explaining to do,” Meg admitted.

“No doubt!” Rowena said. She picked her glass, fished the olive out of it and stuck it on her mouth before she said: “Let’s start with, why didn’t you call me when you got topside? We could have gone out for drinks!”


	8. Chapter 8

 It took a while to catch both Talbot and Rowena up in all of the details. Talbot stopped to ask a lot of questions.

“How did that even…? I mean, how did you even… get together with an angel?”

“We met during the Apocalypse,” Meg replied, with a shrug. “It was a crazy time. Crazy things happened.”

“She was not born during the Apocalypse!” Talbot said, pointing at Eris.

The girl had decided to perch in one of Rowena’s expensive armchairs, toying with the remote control of the giant flat screen. She’d put on a channel, see what was there for a few seconds, then change it to see what there was in another. She seemed fascinated enough by this that she was clearly not paying attention to anything they said, even when they were speaking openly about her.

“No. But I guess even crazier things happen when you get killed and then are brought suddenly back from the demon afterlife,” Meg pointed out, sharply.

Talbot rubbed her eyes and paced around the living room a little. Rowena had finished her martini in the meantime and looked slightly bored, as if she was waiting for the two demonesses to finish their talk so she could get up and make herself another one.

“So you lied,” Talbot concluded. “About the Cambion, about it being dead…”

“Of course I lied,” Meg replied, rolling her eyes. “I’m the Queen of Hell. I need to lie to get people to obey me now and then.”

“Does anyone want anything to drink?” Rowena offered. “I have the most exquisite champagne cooling in the freezer.” She didn’t wait for an answer: she stood up and stalked towards the kitchen. Her voice still reached them as she did: “I know it doesn’t seem like a special occasion, but I get visitors so rarely. I keep asking Samuel to drop by, but he’s always says he’s busy…”

Meg took the time to breathed out in relief.

“Talbot, listen. I need you to go back to Hell and make sure everything keeps going while I deal with… all of this,” she said, gesturing vaguely towards Eris.

Talbot stood in front of her, her arms crossed and her mouth twisted to the side. Clearly, she didn’t like being sidelined this way.

“Are you ordering me to?”

“I’m asking you to,” Meg replied.

“Like you asked me to keep the throne warmth for you while you came up here and played family with your angel and your…?” Talbot’s eyes fixed on Eris. “I don’t even know what we’re supposed to call her.”

“I like ‘your Highness’. It has a nice ring to it,” Eris replied, not ungluing her eyes from the TV for a second.

Talbot stared daggers into her, in a way that made Meg think that she was resenting Eris for some reason.

And well, friend or not, she wasn’t going to tolerate that.

“Fine. Is that how you want to play this?” she said, snapping her fingers to get Talbot’s attention back on her. “Then I’m ordering you to go back to Hell and keep everyone in line,” Meg said. She made sure to let her eyes go black for extra effect. “And if when I get back there, I find anything, and I mean _anything_ , that isn’t to my absolute liking… being demoted from your job will be the least of your worries.”

Talbot swallowed loudly while Meg blinked and made her eyes return to normal.

“Have I made myself clear?”

“Crystal clear.” Talbot bowed to her briefly. “Your Majesty.”

“And Talbot,” Meg called her. “If you so much breathe a word about my daughter to anyone, I’ll find a private cell for you, tear your limbs out, one by one, every day for the next century and make you watch as the Hellhounds feast on them.”

Talbot shuddered visibly.

“Fine,” she whispered.

And then she disappeared.

Meg settled back on the couch with a sigh. She didn’t like having to threaten Talbot, but maybe she’d made a mistake in letting her get so close in the first place, letting her forget what was her real place.

And at least she could have ordered Talbot to fetch her a new wheelchair before she went back to Hell.

Rowena seemed to think she’d done the right thing, though.

“Very well, dear. You need to remind your underlings who is in charge now and then,” she said, as she handed Meg a flute filled to the brim with a golden, bubbly champagne.

Meg would’ve definitely preferred a bottle of good old fashioned beer, but alcohol was alcohol. She downed it in one gulp, without even stopping to savor how expensive or tasty it was.

“How are you even affording all of this?” Meg asked her, trying to change the topic. She gestured at the entire penthouse. “How many people did you have to kill?”

“That’s the best part: no one!” Rowena crossed her legs and grinned at her. “It was all with honest work. See, this city is lousy with monster families who all hate and want to kill each other, but would prefer if it didn’t look like it was them killing each other. So I sell a little hex bag here, put a little curse on someone there… I mean, yes, some might have died, but it wasn’t _me_ who killed them. And I get paid handsomely.”

“So you’re a magical arms dealer.” Meg had to laugh at that. “That’s actually brilliant.”

“Thank you!” Rowena said and filled Meg’s glass again. They toasted and drank.

It wasn’t until she put the flute of champagne down that Meg noticed that the TV had stayed in the same news station for at least a couple of minutes. The remote laid lazily on Eris’ hands and she was looking intently at her.

“What is it, Eris?”

“You’re not… you’re not really going to do all those things to Talbot, are you?” she asked. “She was kinda mean, but she doesn’t deserve…”

“I think you should let me decide what I should and shouldn’t do with my subjects,” Meg cut her off. She didn’t mean to sound so stern, but that was the way it came out and well, what was she supposed to do about it? She pinched her nose while Eris’ eyes widened. “Why don’t you call your dad? I’m sure he’ll be glad to hear that you’re still alive.”

“Phone is on the lounge, dearie,” Rowena added, pointing at it with her finger.

Meg knew for a fact that Rowena had a cellphone on herself that she could have lent to Eris. So even as the girl huffed softly and stood up, leaving the room with a marching step, Meg already knew it wasn’t necessary for her to go all the way there.

She still let her, though, because it was clear Rowena wanted to talk to her alone.

“Children, huh? They’re the joy of our lives,” the witch commented.

“Alright, don’t take this personally, but your child was vermin who never brought anyone joy,” Meg said, before she could help herself.

Rowena’s smile became a little tense, but to her credit, she didn’t try to defend Crowley.

“Oh, I know you weren’t Fergus’ biggest fan,” she said, in what might have very well been the biggest understatement Meg had heard in hundreds of years. “And I’m not going to lie and say he didn’t have his defects. But he was still my boy. He was important to me.” She made a pause. Her grin decayed a little as she added: “It took me losing him to understand just how much.”

Meg leaned down against the couch’s back.

“I know what you mean,” she admitted. “She was in danger today, she got hurt and I couldn’t…”

She sighed again. Rowena quickly leaned in and filled her glass again. Meg thanked her with a silent nod.

“You want my advice?” Rowena asked. She proceeded to give it anyway, even though Meg just gazed at her without answering either way: “I know you being the Queen of Hell and all that is important. Someone has to keep the demons in a short leash. But the girl… Meg, she’s growing so fast. If she went through the trouble of calling you, it’s because she needs you. Here. With her.”

“I have no idea why,” Meg replied. “I’m a demon, Rowena. What could I teach her besides how to create chaos and destruction? And that… that can’t be good for her. She’s powerful, but if she were to call attention to herself in that way, there will be people… angels… things we might not even be aware of, that will want her dead. And what guarantees me that one of them won’t succeed one day?”

“So you’re staying away for her own good, is that what you’re saying?”

Meg emptied her glass again.

“I’m staying away… so she’ll be better than me.”

It was strange that she could say these words out loud and feel relief, and feel like Rowena wouldn’t judge her at all. She hadn’t been able to talk about her feelings about motherhood with anyone openly, not even with Castiel.

“Well, no offense, darling, but I have met your angel, and he isn’t exactly the type that never gets in trouble either,” Rowena pointed out.

Meg had to laugh at that. Of course, she was right.

“But he is good,” Meg replied. “So if she has to be like any of us, I’d rather it’ll be him.”

Rowena opened her mouth, but instead of another comment, she simply grinned again.

“Ah, there you are,” she said. Meg looked to her right to see Eris standing at the doorway with a wireless phone in her hand. “What did your daddy say?”

“Well, he screamed a lot,” Eris admitted, cringing. Perhaps she was seeing that stealing a car and summoning a demon hadn’t been the wisest decision. And Meg was pretty sure she hadn’t mentioned to him she’d tried to fight Michael. “And then he said he, Sam and Jack were on their way. They should be here by morning.”

“Oh, marvelous!” Rowena exclaimed, clapping her hands. “I’ll finally get a chance to host! Maybe I can order some food. Is either of you hungry?”

Meg was going to remind her that she really didn’t need to eat, but she turned towards Eris. She remembered her voracious appetite from where she was younger.

“I… I am a little hungry, yes,” Eris said. “I think I might have another growth spurt coming. Can we order some pizza?”

Meg wasn’t sure than letting her stuff her face with pizza and watch even more TV while she and the witch drank the rest of the champagne was what Eris deserved after she’d broken so many rules. Then again, Meg was a bad mother.

She watched her as Eris sat on a lotus position in the armchair and channel-surfed again. This time she paused for more than a few minutes here and there, her eager eyes fixed on the screen as if she was trying to absorb all the words and information. She hadn’t changed that much in the past weeks in that respect, at least.

At some point around two in the morning, Rowena announced that she’d had enough and that she needed to get her “beauty sleep”.

“The guest rooms are down the hall, if you’d like to lie down for a while.”

“I’m fine,” Meg said.

She really wasn’t all that tired and saw no reason to move from the couch. Besides, Rowena had enough warding signs hidden underneath the expensive carpet and behnd the paintings on the wall that she was sure she couldn’t teleport and she wasn’t in the mood to be carried somewhere else. Damn, she missed her chair.

“I’m fine too,” Eris said. For the first time in hours, she turned around and looked at Rowena, smiling softly. “Thank you, Rowena.”

The witch’s eyebrows raised. She clearly wasn’t expecting that kind of courtesy from Eris, but she accepted it nonetheless with a soft “You’re welcome, sweetie” before she staggered away.

Meg didn’t know why she suddenly felt so scared of being alone with her daughter. Except that it was uncomfortable as all hell, because now they’d had time to calm down and weren’t in any immediate mortal danger, she could see the sense in some of the things that Eris had said. She had left for what, to Eris, was a significant portion of her life. She couldn’t really be blamed for being angry and it was true that Meg felt something akin to guilt over it.

Okay, maybe it was guilt and she just didn’t want to admit it. She was still certain her reasons for being away were perfectly valid, but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel guilty for it.

“How is your arm?” she asked.

Eris stretched it out and flexed it to show that it was perfect.

“I told you, I heal fast,” she said, smiling proudly at her before she turned her attention from Meg back to the television.

“Good. I’m glad.”

A heavy silence fell between the two. Eris toyed with the remote and finally left it behind before she reached for the last slice of pizza left in the box. Meg licked her lips and looked up at the ceiling for a few seconds, but no one came there to help her find something to tell to her.

“I’m sorry I screamed at you,” she said in the end. “I was scared and you… Eris, are you listening to me?”

Eris was still not looking at her, but she slowly turned around to her. She had a look upon her eyes that was both very familiar and very strange.

“You would’ve done the same for me,” she said.

“I would, but that’s different.”

“It’s really not,” Eris insisted. “We owe it to each other. I… I overheard some of the things you said to Rowena,” she added, not apologizing at all for eavesdropping. “And you’re wrong.”

Meg’s stomach twisted up in a knot. How was it possible that this, of all the things she had gone through, was what terrified her the most?

“Eris…”

“You _are_ fit to be my mother,” Eris continued. “You were always supposed to be my mother.”

“Okay, what does that mean?” Meg asked, point blank. It wasn’t the first time that Eris seemed to put a special emphasis on her mothering her and it was really beginning to confuse her. “I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do. You promised me.”

This was like one of those times she was cryptic when she was… younger? A child? Smaller? What was she supposed to call that stage of her life when she seemed to grow and evolve at unprecedented rates?

Meg rubbed her temples once more. She figured it was best to be blunt and honest with her.

“If… this has anything to do with when I was being human, you have to understand that I don’t remember any of it. After I went to Hell, after I became a demon, all those memories were stripped from me.”

Eris was staring at her with her eyes slightly bigger.

“Nothing?”

“Not even my real name,” Meg said. “My father… the demon who created me, he knew it, but he never told me what it was. I think he just didn’t want me to remember who I used to be and I was fine with that. That’s why it surprised me so much that you know it.”

Eris lowered her eyes. Then, she stood up from the armchair to sit by Meg’s side again.

“But you must remember _some_ things,” she insisted. “Like… feelings and…”

Meg shook her head.

“I had nothing but pain, and resentment, and hate, because that was what Azazel needed me to remember to carry out his orders. I thought that him trusting me was akin to love, the only love I could ever know being what I was.”

“And what happened?”

That was a complicated question, simply because there was so much that had happened to Meg in the last few years that she wasn’t sure where to even begin. She decided the start was a good place for that.

“There was another demon. One of the names he went by was Tom. He was like me: Azazel created him and we only answered to him. I thought of him as my brother and that he would have my back whenever things turned ugly. Even though he was just as likely to betray me.”

Meg thought of a time when Tom had turned the Colt against her and shot her. He didn’t know whether the weapon was false or real at the moment and it had really enraged Meg that he would endanger her like that.

She didn’t have a lot of time to be angry with him, though.

“He was killed,” Meg continued. “By Dean Winchester.”

“Sam’s brother,” Eris said, surprised.

“And I was furious. I…”

She stopped for a second, thinking of how to tell the next part. Eris was looking at her attentively, and Meg figured that if she was going to understand exactly what she was, she needed to know the entire true. So she decided not to soften anything.

“I wanted to kill Sam in revenge. It was only fair: a brother’s life for a brother’s life.” Meg noticed that Eris was blinking at her as if that explanation confused her, so she decided to move on: “But Azazel wasn’t on board with that. He said Sam had a higher purpose and he needed him alive, he was part of the ‘master plan’—” Meg couldn’t resist the temptation to draw air quotes at that ”—and when I defied him, Azazel… put me on the rack. Had me tortured,” she clarified when Eris frown at her explanation. “Even after he’d promised I’d never have to go through that again when I swore my allegiance to him. And I had, always, up until that point, obeyed him without question or hesitation. He wouldn’t even consider that before he had me punished.”

She made a pause and involuntarily wrapped her arms around herself. Speaking of these things, things she’d never told anyone, in front of Eris attentive gaze made her feel naked. Vulnerable.

“That was when I realized that whatever he felt for me wasn’t really love. Or maybe it was, but a twisted version of it. And I started wondering if twisted versions of human feelings were all that demons could really feel. I still wonder that.”

“But you love me,” Eris argued. “And you love dad, too.”

Meg had to chuckle at that simplistic assertion.

“I really wish I could tell you that was true,” she said. She stretched her hand and catch a strand of her daughter’s hair in her fingers. “I wish I could say without a shadow of a doubt, that I love you, but I really… don’t know. You are _my_ daughter and just because of that I feel like no one has the right to hurt you. I want you to be safe, I want you to be everything you’re meant to be. But I can’t tell you if that’s the same thing as love.”

She didn’t mention her relationship with Castiel, because that was equally complicated, and also, none of Eris’ business.

Eris reflected on her words silently. Then she scooted closer to Meg and climbed on her lap like she did when she was smaller.

“Then I guess I’ll have to love you for the both of us,” she muttered, placing her arms around Meg’s neck and snuggling close against her. “At least until you remember how to.”

Meg was pretty sure the thing that moved deep inside her chest and came up to her throat, the size of a ping pong ball and so hard that she couldn’t dissolve it no matter how much she swallowed, was a human thing. It would have been humiliating if anyone else except Eris had been there to see it.

But when the little girl moved away and smiled at her, Meg knew right away that even if she burst into tears right there, there’d be no judgment coming from her.

“Do you want to watch a movie with me?” Eris asked her, as if that was the most logical conclusion to discussing all the things they’d just talked about.

Meg took a second to breathe in deeply before she answered:

“Yes. That’d be fine.”

 

* * *

 

Eris fell asleep halfway through the third inconsequential romantic comedy they found on Netflix. When Meg asked her why the hell she liked them so much, she shrugged and said there were funny because “actual people” didn’t act like that at all.

“Oh, so you’d met a lot of ‘actual people’?” Meg asked her, amused.

“Some, after dad took me back to the bunker,” Eris said. “I like Sam. Mary kinda gets on my nerves.”

Meg had to laugh. She hadn’t seen the Winchesters’ mother since she’d given birth to Eris, and even before that, trying to befriend her might have been a little awkward. Then again, Crowley had killed her and she got along swimmingly with Rowena, so…

“Why?”

Eris watched the shenanigans going on the screen for so long without answering that Meg thought she hadn’t heard the question or was simply choosing not to answer to her.

“She keeps trying to be my mom,” Eris concluded in the end. “I don’t need her to.”

Making a follow up question about that was going to send them tumbling down another emotional rabbit hole, so Meg simply chose not to.

At some point, Eris laid down her head on Meg’s lap and her eyes started fluttering shut, even as she assured her that she didn’t want to go to bed and that she wasn’t that tired. She didn’t see the end of the movie and didn’t even wake up when Meg subtly reached for the remote and turned off the TV.

Afterwards, she watched Eris sleep for a while, wondering if she should try and wake her up. Maybe in a minute or so. She looked so very peaceful, with her eyes closed and her face relaxed…

She didn’t know when it happened. She hadn’t fallen asleep since after she’d given birth to Eris (and could that be called sleeping if she’d been basically been passed out for days on end?), but now her eyes were heavy again. She tried to fight it for a moment. She needed to wake up Eris, tell her to go to bed or she could wake up with a sore neck the next morning…

Her head was lolling against the couch’s backrest and well, it wasn’t so bad. She had been so tensed, so tired, through all of those months and that day and it couldn’t hurt if she just closed her eyes for a few seconds and…

She was back in her woods.

As always when she dreamed about that place, a sensation of peace and calm invaded her. The world couldn’t touch her there. She was free.

She stood up from the tree stump she had been sitting on and took two or three steps before she had to stop and wonder what was wrong with that picture.

She was walking. She could feel the grass beneath her bare feet. She looked down at her legs, at the white dress she was wearing, and then at her hands, that were smaller than she’d expected them to be. She heard the rumor of water running somewhere to her left, so she headed there. When she looked down at the clear stream, the face she saw reflected back at her didn’t belong to those of the girl from Cheboygan whose body she’d claimed as her own.

Instead, she was seemingly inhabiting a young girl, almost a teenager, with red hair and dark brown eyes. No, she wasn’t merely inhabiting her.

She _was_ her.

It felt different in a way Meg would’ve had trouble explaining if she’d been awake. She had got used to the Cheboygan girl’s body and its quirks, she had gone through many things with it, to the point that it almost felt rightfully hers. Even now, even if she’d not been bound to it, she wouldn’t choose to abandon it for another that wasn’t as damaged, out of sense of possessiveness, perhaps.

But this body felt different. It felt familiar and oddly _hers_ , like coming home after a long, long trip. Like coming to a place that she’d never seen before, but she recognized with a pang of nostalgia that had been buried deep inside of her.

Was this what Eris had meant? Was she remembering who she was when she was alive and human?

She quickly took a look around: these woods were old and quiet, a place almost untouched by the hands of men. The trees rose tall, high above her head, undisturbed by anyone who’d want to cut them down. The sweet scent of pomegranates at her feet invaded the air. She could hear no birds chirping or squirrels chattering, but that didn’t disturb her at all. She was where she was supposed to and she felt at peace there. She felt safe.

Well, up until the woman in the black coat showed up again.

“Hello, Meg.”

Meg watched her walk up to her with an unearned calm. She didn’t know who she was or why she kept showing up in her dreams, but she felt secure enough to know that she couldn’t hurt her. Not there. Not in _her_ woods.

“Have you come here to spout more cryptic nonsense?”

The woman’s full lips twitched, as if she was containing a smile.

“No. But if you were smart you’d listen to the cryptic nonsense and…”

“Why are _you_ here?”

Meg startled.

A third person had come into the clearing, a girl wearing a black lace dress that went all the way down to her knees. It took her a second to recognize her, because she didn’t look at all like the last time she’d seen her: she appeared to be a young, twenty-something woman. All the baby fat had disappeared from her face, and now she had high cheekbones and a narrow nose. She was almost as tall as her, her dark hair falling over her shoulders and her arms crossed over her little chest, with one of her thick eyebrows raised in questioning.

If it hadn’t been for her mismatched eyes, one blue and one brown, Meg wouldn’t have known it was her.

“Eris?”

“Sorry, mom. I felt she was here and I had to come and make sure she didn’t hurt you,” Eris replied, shrugging.

The woman in the black coat scoffed. Meg wasn’t sure if she was deriding the idea that she would hurt her or that Eris could stop her from doing so.

“You have complicated things more than enough, little girl,” the strange woman said, “without adding empty threats to it all.”

“Have I?” Eris cocked her head in a way that was eerily reminiscent of Castiel. “Or perhaps you and the old Death failed to do your jobs when you had the chance?”

The woman’s jaw clenched.

“You don’t understand…”

“I understand more than you think, Billie,” Eris replied. Her tone was sharp and cutting, and the woman stepped back as her eyes opened wide, as if hearing her name in Eris’ mouth had been a slap in the face “Don’t patronize me just because you’ve been here longer than me. I have a purpose and I can’t fulfill it because _he_ is still around, pulling the strings. I’m sure you know just how frustrating that can be.”

“Who are you talking about?” Meg asked.

Both Billie and Eris turned to look at her, mildly surprised, as if they’d forgotten they were having this conversation in the middle of her dreamscape.

“You haven’t told her?” It was Billie’s turn to crook an eyebrow.

Eris raised her chin, arrogantly.

“She needs time to remember.”

Billie let out a chuckle, her whole posture relaxing.

“For all your bravado, you’re still just a little girl,” she said. She sounded slightly surprised at that. “New and confused. Bound to your affections still.”

Eris glared at her, her eyes shining with anger.

“I’ve had enough of you,” she said. “Go away!”

She snapped her fingers and suddenly the woman in black wasn’t there anymore.

“Eris…” Meg started, but her daughter shook her head.

“I’m sorry, mom. It’s time to wake up.”

Meg opened her eyes.

She was no longer in the woods, but back again on Rowena’s couch. The sun was sipping in through the windows, rising over the Chicago skyline. She rubbed her eyes and looked to the right when Eris moved.

She had changed during the night. When she’d gone to sleep, she had all the appearance of a thirteen-year-old girl in baggy clothes. Now she looked a little more as she had in Meg’s dreams, with her face less round and her lips fuller as she looked down at her body.

“Ah, man,” she complained.

She had already kicked off her boots, but even without them, it was obvious as she stood up that she had grown several inches. She had to unbutton her jeans because her hips were wider and the sleeves of her jacket were far too short. Her hair was also longer, falling down to the middle of her back when the previous day it had barely reached her shoulders.

She was unfazed by the sudden change, though, and Meg had to wonder how many times had this happened to her.

“Are you alright?” she asked her.

“Yeah, I just really liked those jeans,” Eris answered, with a sigh. She had to wiggle to get them out of her legs and dropped them on the carpet with a sigh. “Do you think Rowena has clothes I can borrow?”

She stood up and turned around to head towards the rooms.

“Eris,” Meg called her, because she was baffled that Eris would just… so casually shrug off the dream they had just shared. “What was that all about?”

“What thing?” Eris asked. Her face was the very picture of innocence.

“You know what I mean,” Meg said, narrowing her eyes at her. “Who is Billie? And who were the two of you talking about?”

Eris licked her lips and shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

“Everything will be explained in time, mom. Now I have to go change. Dad and the others will be here any minute now.”

“Eris!” Meg called her again, but her daughter simply walked away as if she hadn’t heard her.

Meg sighed and leaned against the couch. No wonder Castiel had ended up putting spells on her.


	9. Chapter 9

Just as Eris had predicted, five minutes later the intercom rang. Rowena came out of the room, wrapped up in a silky robe and looking annoyed. She looked strangely pale without her sharp eyeliner and blood red lipstick.

“Your extraordinary child woke me up,” she complained through gritted teeth.

“Not such a joy now, huh?”

Rowena growled softly while she picked up the intercom.

“Yes, Theo, send them all up,” she said simply before turning to Meg with a yawn. “You’re going to have to entertain them while I put on my face. Can’t let Sam see me like this!”

Meg was going to ask what was the difference between Sam and the rest of them, but she figured it mattered very little. Rowena did her the favor of waving her hand to vanish some of the guards so Meg could teleport again. She moved to the high chair next to the kitchen island, from where she had a clear view of the living room, and started manipulating the coffee maker.

Two minutes later, the doors to the private elevator opened up and Sam, Jack and Castiel stepped outside of it, looking around very confused, as if they didn’t know Rowena liked to live it up.

“Hello, boys,” Meg greeted them as she poured some coffee on the mugs she had taken out of the cupboards with some basic telekinesis. She glanced at them and then had to do a double-take. “Where did you find that?”

Castiel came in pushing her char until it was close enough to her that she could move to it if she wanted to.

“Outside the abandoned factory where you fought Michael,” he said.

He seemed irritated, for some reason, as if Michael almost catching them had been somehow their fault.

“Yes, about that,” Meg started, glaring at him. “You put a spell on her so she wouldn’t run away and then she ran away anyway?”

Castiel sighed deeply and pinched the bridge of her nose. Meg knew it was physically impossible, but he also seemed to have aged ten years.

“She’s… sneaky.”

“So? You’re supposed to keep an eye on her!”

It came out more forceful than Meg had expected it. She didn’t know why she was suddenly so angry about this, only that she was. Castiel looked at her, a little astonished. It was almost as if she was expecting that she would jump in his arms and start making out with him after he’d let their daughter steal a car and practice black magic.

Not likely.

“Well, you could have checked in on her every now and then,” he pointed out. “Maybe then Eris wouldn’t have felt compelled to try and summon you.”

“Don’t try to turn this on me,” she groaned. Mostly because she knew he was right, at least in part, and she didn’t need the extra guilt weighting on her any more than it already did. “You didn’t even know where she was until she called you.”

“We were looking for her everywhere!” Castiel argued, his voice raising all of the sudden. “Weren’t we, Sam?”

Sam and Jack had stayed back, paralyzed and visibly uncomfortable that they were suddenly included in this argument.

“Y-yeah, we started looking for her as soon as we noticed she was gone,” Sam said, after exchanging a quick look with Jack. “We didn’t… well, it was… complicated, with all the wards the Impala has.”

Meg bit the inside of her cheek and was about to scream at Sam not to try and sell her those pathetic excuses, when Eris sauntered back into the kitchen.

She had raided Rowena’s closet and found a knee-length black dress that fit her (Meg was taken aback by a sudden and intense sensation of déjà vu). Her hair was shorter but cut unevenly, as if she had taken a pair of scissors to it without worrying too much about the aesthetics, and she had torn out the sleeves of her jacket so she could wear it as a short vest over her dress. She was barefoot, of course, and didn’t seem to notice anyone or anything else as she went straight for the coffee mugs.

“Thanks, mom,” she muttered and proceeded to gulp down half of the mug without adding any sugar or cream. After a few seconds, though, she put it down and turned to Castiel with an awkward half-smile. “Hi, dad. Are you going to ground me some more?”

Castiel’s eyes opened wide in surprise at their daughter’s new appearance, but he recovered quickly enough.

“What were you thinking, Eris?” he asked without raising his voice, which made the bubbling anger underneath it even more obvious.

“You know, everybody keeps asking me that,” Eris sighed. “But like, I’m not entirely certain that you’re ready to handle the answer.”

“Eris…” Meg said, not certain what she was going to say next.

She didn’t have time to find out. Rowena came out of the hallway next, looking fabulous in a long, tight red dress.

“Hi, Sam,” the witch greeted him, with a wink.

Meg thought that he was going to get even more uncomfortable than he already was having to listen to them arguing, but to her surprise, he looked down at his shoes with a flustered smile.

“Hi, Rowena.”

What the hell was going on?

Jack cleared his throat and only then Meg deigned to pay attention to him. He was carrying a long, rectangular bundle, wrapped in blue gauze, clutching it close to his chest the way a child would hold close a teddy bear or a security blanket.

“I don’t mean to… interrupt, but…”

“What is that?” Rowena asked, pointing at the thing in Jack’s hands.

Jack threw an insecure look at Sam, as if he was asking for his permission before he said anything. Sam nodded at him, so Jack turned around and headed towards the large table in Rowena’s dining room.

Meg moved back to her chair and followed the rest of them there. It was strange: she hadn’t really considered how much liberty it gave to her. She thought she wouldn’t miss it since she was able to teleport anyway, but it was nice to just be able to roll wherever she wanted to go instead of having to use her powers in that way.

Jack set the thing over the table and waited until they were all reunited around it before he unwrapped the gauze.

In the middle of it, there laid a spear. The shaft was of long, dark wood and the head was of a polished, white material that Meg couldn't quite recognize. If she had been forced to make a guess, she would have said it was a bone of some sort that had been sharpened with infinite patience.

It looked like nothing remarkable, but given the care that Sam and Jack had put into getting it there, she figured it must have been.

Eris seemed to think the same thing. She leaned over it, watching it with wide, curious eyes.

"Where does it come from?" she asked, lowering her voice as if the spear was going to hear her speaking about her.

"Not this world," Sam said, "but one of the parallel ones that Jack opened a portal into. Jody and her girls... they caught the person who came into this world carrying it. We think it might be the only thing that could hurt or kill Michael."

Meg had the impression that wasn't the full story, but she wasn't really interested on the details.

"Great. So, what are we waiting for?"

The heavy silence that followed that question was enough of an answer.

"Oh, I get it. We can't kill Michael while he's still possessing Dean." She rolled her eyes.

"We're not going to hurt him," Castiel said.

"Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the bastard isn't going to have the same consideration." A memory of Eris screamed out in pain as Michael broke her arm crossed Meg's mind. She tightened her lips. "So what are we going to do about it?"

Sam leaned back on his chair, his arms crossed over his chest.

"You haven't thought this through, have you?" Meg asked him, narrowing her eyes at him.

"I have thought about it from every possible angle," Sam said. "If Jack still had his powers, we could open a portal into his world and send him back, we could find a way to wake Dean up and get him to expel Michael. But even if we did..."

"It's no guarantee that he'd stop causing destruction wherever we send him," Castiel completed. He lowered his eyes. "Sam, I hate to say this, but we might need to kill him, no matter what visage he's in..."

Sam stood up and walked away from the table. Of course he wasn't going to have the guts to do it. Meg opened her mouth to back up Castiel's argument when Eris interrupted her:

"Well, is there a visage you would be willing to kill him in?"

"What do you mean?" Jack asked as everyone turned to look at her.

"We find a way to cast him out of Dean, we put him in someone you don't care that much about and we pierce him with the spear," Eris explained, with a matter-of-fact tone that indicated she thought that was the most logical plan and they were idiots for not coming up with it sooner. "End of the story."

"I vote for that, if you're so stubborn as to think Dean's life is that precious," Meg said.

"It's not that simple," Castiel argued. "Even with normal angels, the vessels could become unstable. Archangels... their vessels are even rarer. It could be destroyed and Michael could escape before we even have the chance to ambush him."

A silence fell around the table. Jack cleared his throat.

"We... Sam and Dean, they were Lucifer and Michael's vessels, yes?" he started, timidly at first as all the attention turned to him. "But my father... he had another vessel. The man named Nick that he was occupying when Michael killed him. He told me Crowley had fixed up the vessel so it wouldn't be so unstable. Michael must have had someone like that."

Sam lifted his head as his eyes slowly widened, as if a realization was slowly dawning on him.

"Adam," he muttered. "He was... our half-brother. Michael, this world's Michael, he was in his body when we... when I... pushed us down unto the Cage."

Meg had to readjust a lot of the things she had thought about how that battle had gone down at those words.

"Wait a second, you're telling me there's been a human soul inside of the Cage with Michael and Lucifer all of this time?"

"It wasn't... we didn't..." Sam started.

"Dean and I went through many lengths to take Sam's body and soul out of the Cage in the first place," Castiel said. "We had to appeal to Death himself and he wasn't... there wasn't much we could do for Adam."

"So he has been there rotting for years," Meg said. She sighed and shook her head. "Boy, you Winchesters really would throw anyone under whatever bus was coming down the road for one another, wouldn't you?"

Sam glared at her, but didn't answer to her quip. Instead, he turned to Rowena.

"You opened the Cage once," he said, turning towards Rowena. "To bring Lucifer out, to help us against Amara. Could you do it again?"

The witch shook her head.

"Oh, you know I would do anything for you, Sam," she said. "However, I only managed to do that because Lucifer instructed me on what to do, because he was willing to come out to the surface. I don’t know what’s left in there now and if I could pull it out."

"A maddened archangel, for sure," Meg said. "The only way Adam's body could have survived all this time is if the OG Michael is still riding inside of him."

"What about Adam's soul?" Jack asked.

"If there's anything left of it," Meg replied.

"Do you think he might have turned into a demon?"

Meg considered this question and then shook her head.

"If a soul stays on the rack, but never picks up the blade, it doesn't lose its humanity. Unless there was another half-brother we don't know about in there with them, I think it's more likely Adam was the tortured than the torturer."

Sam swallowed loudly and avoided everyone's gazes when they turned towards him.

"It doesn't matter," he said in the end. "I'm not going to force you to open it again if you think it's too risky, Rowena."

The witch stared at him, her mouth half opened as if Sam concern moved her deeply.

Seriously, were they vibing or was Meg imagining things?

"Well, if it's a matter of walking in and taking something out," Rowena started, slowly, "I'm sure Death herself could be persuaded to help us out, no? I mean, Billie is susceptible, but not unreasonable."

Billie. Death.

Meg stared at Eris, who was suddenly shifting in her seat very uncomfortable.

"You... what did you...?" Meg started, but she interrupted herself when Eris shot her a panicked look.

"Or I could do it!" she volunteered, with a tense smile. "I could walk into the Cage and bring Adam's body out. And there's no reason to get Billie involved!"

No one except Meg seemed to have noticed how suspicious that last addition sounded. They were all too hanged up on the first part of the suggestion.

"Eris, no," Castiel said, immediately. "Even if you believe you have the power to do something like that..."

"I don't believe I have the power, dad," Eris replied, rolling her eyes. "I know I do."

"You don't have to risk yourself for us, Eris," Sam added.

"Of course I do," she replied. "Do you think I want either Michael wreaking havoc on my planet? And in any case, it won't be a risk at all," Eris assured them before anyone could ask what she meant by "my planet". "I could have him out like that." She snapped her fingers to demonstrate just how easy it would be.

"No!" Castiel replied, firmly. "Meg, tell her it's too dangerous!"

Meg said nothing for a few seconds.

"Meg!" Castiel insisted.

"Obviously, is not going to be as easy as you're making it sound, Eris," Meg said, finally.

"But mom..."

"I would need to organize an army of demons to go with you if things turn ugly," she continued, ignoring both Eris' protest and the horrified look in Castiel's face as he realized what she was saying. "And we would need a way to either contain Michael or send him back up to Heaven..."

"You can't possibly be considering this!" Castiel interrupted her.

"Well, I'm not hearing any better ideas," Meg replied. "You don't want to just kill Dean, what's that the alternative? Shuffle Michael through everyone on earth until we find someone that can hold him long enough for us to stab him? And do you think he's just going to stand still and let us?"

Eris chuckled at Meg's words, but no one else did.

"We have a perfectly suitable alternative in Hell's basement," Meg continued. "I say we give it a shot."

Sam was leaning forwards, as if the idea interested him more than he was willing to show.

"Are you sure you can get in the Cage?"

"Sam!" Castiel exclaimed, throwing him a betrayed look.

"Absolutely," Eris guaranteed him. She raised her chin and smiled proudly at him. "I can do it."

Everyone went silent, staring at Sam. Meg wasn’t sure how it was that the Queen of Hell, an angel of the Lord, the most powerful witch in the world, a Nephilim and whatever Eris was, were all waiting on a human’s decision.

Then again, Sam Winchester was not any human.

He bit the inside of his cheek, clearly weighting in the options. He then pointedly looked at Eris and nodded.

“Sam!” Castiel exclaimed, again, even more indignant than before.

“We have nothing to lose.”

“We have _plenty_ to lose!” Castiel protested. “I am not willing to let my daughter risk her life on the off chance that this insane plan might work!”

Eris threw her head back as if she was about to lose her patience.

“I’m not a child, dad.”

“You’re not even a month old,” Castiel pointed out. “And I’m not willing to let you test your strength against an archangel…”

“I already did,” Eris said, with a smile that looked more like a snarl. She raised her arm, her charm bracelet twinkling as she did. “And if you hadn’t put this stupid thing on me to de-power me, I could have taken him!”

“I put that thing on you because you kept abusing your powers and…!”

“You trained me to fight!” Eris argued, her voice raising. The window’s glasses vibrated slightly. “What the hell was that all for if you won’t even let me show what I can really do?”

“I trained you to defend yourself, not to run headfirst into every battle that comes your way!”

“Alright, that’s enough, the two of you!” Meg interrupted them just as Eris was opening her mouth to reply back. “Eris, control yourself before the angels hear you throwing a temper tantrum again!”

“I’m not throwing a tantrum!” Eris protested, leaning back in the chair and crossing her arms over her chest.

Meg ignored her. She also ignored the way Rowena stared at them, as if they were the most intriguing spectacle she had ever witnessed, and Sam and Jack, who were awkwardly looking everywhere but at them, pretending that the fight wasn’t happening.

“And you,” Meg added, turning to Castiel. “If you’re so worried about how this might turn out, you might as well come along. We’re going to need backup, _all_ the backup we can get. I’m willing to let her do this,” she continued, raising her own voice as Castiel leaned forwards to answer. “But not alone. Do you hear me, Eris? You’re not going to try and open the Cage without at least half of the hordes of Hell behind you and all the angels your dad can convince to come along.”

That surprised everyone enough to bring all the attention in the room back to her.

“Angels?” Jack repeated.

“The other Michael took over heaven, didn’t he?” she asked. “But I’m sure some of the angels there weren’t willing to just bend over to him. He isn’t the Michael they knew, after all.”

“That Michael is gone either way,” Castiel argued. “And there aren’t exactly many angels left. Heaven is… it’s in dire conditions, Meg. I don’t know if I could ask anyone for their help, if they would eve  heed me.”

That wasn’t at all what Meg wanted to hear. She wasn’t sure how much of an alliance there could be between Heaven and Hell, even if it was for something like this, but she was going to try anything as long as it secured more players on their team. Or Eris’ team.

“Maybe they will for something like this,” she insisted. “They followed you once. You were Captain of your own garrison, you were the leader of the rebellion.”

“That was…” Castiel shook his head, slightly defeated. “That was a long time ago, Meg. All the angels that would have once been willing to forgive me… I’m sure there’s none left now.”

That was true, Castiel had been too much of a troublemaker and he had turned his back on Heaven repeatedly. But they really didn’t have time for him to throw himself a self-pity party.

“Try anyway?” Meg begged. “If not for Dean, for Eris. Because we’re not backing down from this plan, Cas.”

Castiel raised his head towards Eris. She still had her arms crossed and she was casting glances at them. She was surely very interested in how this conversation would turn up, but she was doing everything in her power to not look like it.

The angel sighed deeply.

“Very well. I don’t promise anything,” Castiel said. “And if no other angel is willing to go, I’ll do it myself, for what it’s worth.”

The edge of Eris’ lips quivered, satisfied that she had got away with hers after all.

“Thanks, dad.”

“So, it’s decided,” Sam intervened, finally. “We’re going to Hell…”

“ _You_ are not going anywhere,” Meg interrupted him. “We’re not going to walk into the universe’s most dangerous place while also having to worry about protecting your mortal asses.”

This seem to offend Jack.

“We can help!”

“Yes. You can help by staying here with Rowena to figure out what spells Crowley used to get Nick’s body back in archangel-containing conditions.”

“Won’t be a problem, darling,” Rowena said. A wide grin expanded through her face. “Do you want me to draw some protection sigils on your girl as well? With a discount, of course.”

“That would be helpful, yes.” Meg nodded. “We only have one shot at getting this right. We can’t leave any part of it to chance.”

It wasn’t much for a rallying speech, but it did the job. Jack clenched his jaw and nodded, though he still seemed pretty angry at not having the chance to go with them. Sam and Cas exchanged a decided glanced and Rowena took a deep breath, leaning back on the chair as she muttered something along the lines of “Just when I thought I was out…”

Eris was the only one who didn’t seem affected at all by the fact they were going to basically risk their lives soon.

“Great! So while dad talks to his brothers, can we go shopping?” she asked. “I need shoes. Rowena only wears high heels.”

“You get used to the extra inches after a while,” Rowena replied, with a shrug.

Meg sighed.

“Sure. Let’s go shopping.”

Eris clapped her hands enthusiastically and stood up to disappear once more in the rooms’ directions.

“Come, Jack, dear. We’re going to need some books,” Rowena said. Jack stood up to follow her.

Meg rolled her chair back to get away from the table when…

“Meg.” Sam’s voice froze her in place. “We need to talk about Eris.”

Meg slowly turned towards him.

“What about Eris?”

She imprinted a warning tone in her words, as if she was challenging Sam to say something bad about her girl. Sam raised his hands, knowing full well that it was in his best interest not to mess with this. He still went on asking the question:

“What she’s saying she can do… doesn’t it worry you just a little?”

“Of course it worries me. I don’t want her to be in danger, but I get the feeling she might try it with or without us. I’d rather it be with us.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Sam replied.

“She is absolutely certain that she can walk into the Cage and pull Michael and Adam out,” Castiel pointed out. “Only beings with immense power are capable of such a feat. God, Death…”

“You did it and you’re only a seraph,” Meg pointed out.

“I managed to pull Sam’s body out but not his soul, precisely because I didn’t have enough power for anything else,” Castiel explained. “I know this now. In my arrogance, however…”

“Well, then, she takes after you,” Meg interrupted him. Castiel went quiet, but a comical expression of disbelief appeared on his face. Meg smirked at him, trying to mask the profound irritation she was experiencing right then. “If she can’t pull them all out, what does it matter? We only need Adam’s body and a way to trick Michael into getting inside it.”

“That’s not the issue,” Castiel said. “The question is if she does succeed. Then we have to wonder…”

His voice trailed off, as if it pained him to say what he was thinking. Meg squinted her eyes at him.

“What?”

“What is she, exactly?” Sam ended.

Meg had the impression that it wasn’t the first time Sam and Castiel had a conversation along those lines. If Dean had been there, Meg would have suspected that the inevitable follow-up question to _“What is she?”_ was going to be _“How do we kill her?”_

She knew Sam wasn’t so quick to pull the trigger on things he didn’t understand and of course, Castiel would never hurt Eris.

But she still disliked the way they asked that. She rolled her chair back a little more and lifted up her chin.

“She’s my daughter,” she told them before turning her back on them. “That’s all I need to know.”


	10. Chapter 10

The conversation lingered in Meg’s head longer than she would’ve wanted. She just didn’t feel comfortable thinking that there were some truths about Eris that she’d need to confront sooner or later.

Like the fact she had terrible tastes in clothes, for example.

Some people threw confused looks at them when they walked inside the shopping mall. It reminded Meg of the time they had made an escapade in the streets of Lebanon, except this time, Eris wasn’t looking around and pointing at everything excitedly. She just looked like a willowy, barefooted teenager, who made a beeline for the nearest Hot Topic while Meg trailed behind her hopelessly.

“Do you have black stockings and boots?” she asked the blue-haired girl working behind the counter. “Also, I’m going to need some dresses and jeans, but they have to be a size or two larger. I think I might grow a couple of inches still. And do you have something I can wear on top of this? I don’t really get cold, but I like the way it looks.”

The clerk blinked a couple of times, but in the end, she simply shrugged.

“Sure, I’ll show you some things.” She stood up and walked around, only to stop in her tracks when she took another look at Eris. “You’re not wearing shoes.”

Eris looked down for a second and then up at the clerk again.

“Yeah. That’s why I need the boots.”

“… okay,” said the clerk, after a pause. She must have been used to weird teenagers coming into her shop all the time.

Fifteen minutes later, Eris was inside the fitting rooms, trying out each and every piece of clothing she had chosen while Meg waited outside, with her arms crossed over her chest and glaring at the clerk until the girl got the message and left them alone.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Eris?” Meg asked her. “The whole… going into the Cage thing.”

“I thought you were fine with me doing that,” Eris commented.

Meg sighed and looked at the ceiling for a moment, gathering her thoughts.

“We could ask this Billie person to do it.”

“Ah, I don’t think so. She’s probably mad at me after I snapped her away.”

“Yes, I’ve been meaning to ask you about it,” Meg said. She looked at the curtain that separated her from Eris and licked her lips. “Why did you do that?”

There was a prolonged silence behind the curtain. Meg thought Eris was simply going to leave the question unanswered.

“Did you know who she was?” Meg insisted.

“Yes,” Eris admitted in the end. “And she knows who I am. But I don’t like her intervening like that.”

“Intervening with what?”

“With you.” Eris drew the curtain aside. She had changed the black dress for a white one of about the same length, maybe a little shorter, and added black stockings on her legs. “You’re going to remember in time. She doesn’t need to press the issue. Can you pass me that belt?”

Meg glanced at the clerk, who was once again behind the counter, distractedly leafing through a magazine, before stretching her hand. The thick, black belt that Eris had pointed flew towards it. The clerk lifted her eyes, but she didn’t catch anything strange, and returned to her magazine.

“What am I supposed to remember?” Meg asked as Eris adjusted the belt around her waist. “And how are you so certain I will?”

As always, Eris chose to answer only one of those questions:

“Because you remember the woods.”

Meg was rendered speechless. All she could do was watch as Eris grabbed two different leather jackets (one black, the other brown) and held them up in front of the mirror, deciding which one she liked more.

“The woods?” Meg repeated. “You know about… the woods?”

Eris hummed, as she tossed the brown jacket aside and put on the black one.

“You knew about them before you walked into my dream?”

“Of course.” Eris rolled her eyes and huffed softly as she sat down to put on her boots. “That was where we first met. Under the pomegranates trees.”

Meg remembered the dream she had, the mysterious voice that had spoken about her “impossible child”, even before she’d known that she was pregnant. The first time she’d had a vision of Eris, way before she even considered that was a possibility…

But it didn’t seem like she was talking about that at all.

“Eris…”

Eris zipped up her black boots and smiled at her.

“It’s okay, mom. You’ll remember,” she said, with a little smile. “Can we go have some froyo? I haven’t eaten that in ages. Dad says it has too much sugar.”

Meg figured she wasn’t going to get any more information out of her that day, no matter how much she asked. Eris added a little black purse and some makeup to their purchases and Meg paid with one of Sam’s counterfeit credit cards.

“You have a really cool older sister,” the blue-haired clerk told Eris. “I wish my sister would take me out shopping like this.”

Meg figured there was no point in correcting her.

Fifteen minutes later they were at the food courtyard. Meg found a place that sold beers along with some cheeseburgers, while Eris happily came back with a tray with four cups of frozen yogurt, each of a different color. They ate in silence for a while.

Strangely, it didn’t feel awkward or forced at all. Meg watched Eris closely, the way she smiled and how her mismatched eyes lit up with ever spoonful she stuck inside her mouth, how she wiggled happily as she tried on the different flavors, how her charm bracelet twinkle when she moved her hand, and felt… content. At peace. In a way that was similar, but different, from how Meg felt when she laid in Cas’ arms late at night, without saying a word, with his hands in her hair or her hips while they waited for the dawn to come. Similar to the way she felt in the woods when she closed her eyes and allowed herself to dream about them.

Like there was a storm constantly brewing inside of her, but she was so used to it she barely paid attention to it, except for when it was quiet. And it was only quiet when she was with Eris or with Cas.

It was easy to forget that there were angels trying to kill them and that she had been absent from Hell for what, at this point, must have been several months there. It wasn’t that those things were gone, just… not as important as sitting there and watching Eris eat her frozen yogurt.

Meg took a sip from her beer, wondering if she should burst this bubble by asking a question. Eris seemed more prone to answer her questions with a full stomach.

In the end, Eris was the first one to speak.

“You’re thinking about the Cage, aren’t you?”

“I’m thinking a lot of things,” Meg said. She took another sip of her beer. “But yes, that’s one of them. How are you so sure that you’ll be able to access it?”

Eris licked a drop of froyo from her finger, pensively.

“That thing was designed to keep old things inside,” she explained. “I’m brand new, so it can’t keep me out.”

That made sense in a way that Meg couldn’t have explained out loud. At times she still thought that no one could have predicted the series of circumstances that had led to Eris’ existence. Other times, she was certain there was something else behind all of this, something only Eris and maybe Billie could really understand…

Her thoughts stopped on their tracks. Eris had placed a hand on her wrist and was smiling softly at her.

“Don’t worry. I’m not afraid of what’s inside it.”

“That’s because you’re an arrogant little fool,” Meg pointed out. “It can’t be helped. You’re your father’s daughter.”

Eris laughed quietly.

“That’s odd. He keeps saying I’m too much like you.”

That caused Meg to chuckle.

“And what do you think about that?”

“I think…” Eris started, but her words were drowned by a strangled yelp. She shook her head as her eyes widened and her entire body went stiff.

“Eris?” Meg asked, as a knot of concern began to grow in the pit of her stomach.

Eris let out a sharp cry and placed her hands over her ears, shaking her head vigorously.

“Eris!” Meg screamed out. She pushed her chair away and surrounded the table to get closer to her as Eris began hyperventilating. Tears flooded from her blue eye when she looked up at Meg.

“Dad,” she mumbled. “He’s… he’s in trouble.”

Meg opened her mouth to ask her what the hell she meant, but her phone chimed at that precise moment. It was a text, from Castiel’s phone. It only contained a series of numbers that she knew right away were coordinates.

If Eris was right, that meant…

“I’m going to help him.”

Eris straightened her shoulders

“I’m coming with.”

“Eris…”

“I’m coming with, mom!” Eris repeated, stubbornly.

Meg gritted her teeth and took a glance around. People were already staring at them with pointed curiosity. It was a matter of time before one of them stood up and walked towards them to ask them if they had a problem.

She chewed on the inside of her cheek.

“Get up,” she told Eris and for once, she obeyed her without protest.

Meg rolled away with her daughter by her side, ignoring the glances thrown in their direction until they were standing in front of the elevator’s door.

Instead of waiting for it, though, Meg grabbed Eris' hand tightly and flew them both away from that place. Hopefully, no one noticed it.

The coordinates corresponded to a place somewhere in Nebraska, an abandoned warehouse by the side of the road. Eris looked around with wide eyes, but Meg felt it first: the weakness of her limbs, the weight of the air around her.

She didn’t have to look up to know there was a Devil’s Trap painted on the ceiling.

“Don’t try anything!”

It was a harsh female voice. Meg was suddenly hyperaware of the weight of her weapon inside the sleeve of her jacket, but the second she turned around, she realized she wouldn’t be able to just throw it and be done with them.

Not when Castiel was knelt between two other angels, his face bruised and bloodied and the business end of a blade gently pressed against his throat.

So he hadn’t sent that text. This was an ambush and they’d walked right into it.

Meg stomach twisted up.

“Clarence, are you okay?” she asked, ignoring completely the angel in a dark-haired vessel walking up to them, her blade lifted up in a clear threat.

Castiel lifted his gaze at them. One of his eyes was closed shut and swollen and his lower lip was cut and bleeding still. But Meg realized none of these were the reasons he twisted his mouth in a pained gesture when he looked at them.

“I’m sorry, Meg,” he muttered. “I… I tried.”

Meg pressed a finger against her lips. She had no idea how they were going to get out of this one, but her mind was already working fast. The Devil’s Trap wasn’t going to hold her forever, not with the boost of power she’d got since taking the throne. But she was going to need some time to gather up enough strenght to break it. Could she stall the angels that long?

“This is the girl?” the leading angel asked, talking a step closer to them. Her gaze was fixed on Eris. “Castiel, just when we thought you couldn’t fall any lower…”

“She’s an abomination, Karael,” said one of the angels holding Castiel. “I say let’s kill her and be done with it!”

“Michael wants her alive,” Karael replied. She took yet another step. “So maybe we can reach an agreement, demon,” she added, turning her attention towards Meg. “Your lover for the child.”

“That would be Queen of Hell,” Meg corrected her. “And I’m getting a little tired of angels taking me for an idiot.”

“Counteroffer,” Eris intervened. “You let him go now and I kill you quickly.”

Karael shot her a baffled expression before a smile appeared on her face and she let out a derisive laugh.

“She speaks!” she exclaimed, with fake surprise. She took another step, closer to the edge of the Trap. “That’s hilarious. The walking blasphemy thinks that I care what she has to say.”

Meg moved her arm to the side. She only had one chance to kill her, and when she did…

“Perhaps you should care, Karael,” Eris said, calmly. “You have no idea what’s been set in motion, do you?”

Something moved out of the corner of Meg’s eye. Castiel had moved his head to one side and then to the other, so slowly his captors hadn’t noticed it. Next, he tilted it towards the angel to his left, all the time staring intently at Meg. Meg made a movement with her head that she hoped Castiel would interpret as a nod.

Eris and Karael had completely ignored the entire exchange.

“Your _father_ ,” Karael said, imprinting the world with as much venom as she could, “seems to think that you’re something especial, but I can see the truth. You’re nothing but a juiced up demon. And you should burn just like the rest of them.”

Eris lip quivered in a defiant smirk.

“Well, why don’t you step in here and test out that theory, you self-righteous bitch?”

Karael growled angrily and raised her fist. Eris stopped the hit with an open palm and yanked Karael towards her, into the Devil’s Trap with herself.

Meg took the chance: she let the angel blade slide into her hand and threw it. It spun in the air, across the room, and it sank straight into the angel to the left’s chest. His skin flashed white and a moment later, his vessel crumpled down on the floor, dead. His blade clattered on the floor, away from Castiel’s throat.

Castiel jumped up, hitting the other angel’s jaw with the top of his head and grabbing the blade, just in time to stop his renewed attack.

Meg wished that he could hold his ground, hurt as we was, because she had bigger troubles to deal with: Karael and Eris were locked in a fierce fight, with Karael trying and failing to stab Eris as their daughter artlessly threw punches at the angel's face that didn't quite seem to land.

Meg charged towards them, but Karael saw her coming. She turned towards her, stretching a hands to repel her or perhaps to smite her…

The tip of her angel blade somehow ended up caught in Eris’ charms bracelet. Karael pulled back to release it while Eris stepped away exactly at the same time.

The chain broke. The charms flew in every direction, as a wave of hot energy expanded through the warehouse. Meg felt it like a punch on her stomach that knocked the air out of her and sent her flying backwards. She hit the invisible wall that marked the limits of the Devil Trap and barely managed to keep her balance on the chair.

When she managed to stabilize herself, all the angels were down on the floor. Eris was on the other end of the Trap, on her hands and knees, with her back turned towards Meg. Her shoulders shook and for a second, Meg thought she was crying.

Until her laughter came rolling like a tide, soft at first then louder and louder until it grew into a semi-hysterical guffaw.

“Ah, thank you!” she said, still chuckling as she staggered to her feet. “That thing was really starting to annoy me.”

She turned around, slowly. Her eyes weren’t brown and blue anymore, but pitch black with a silver light shining through right where her pupils should have been.

Karael tried to stand up, but the warehouse rattled with a sudden earthquake. A light shone and grew brighter and brighter around Eri as a high-pitched sound began to rang, so loud Meg fear her eardrums were going to rupture.

With a loud crack, the ceiling split, breaking the Trap right in the middle and raining debris on them. Meg immediately felt better, stronger, but she didn’t have time to move.

Eris stretched her hand and Karael flew across the room with a shout. A force pinned her to the wall, her arms and legs bent in unnatural positions.

The other angel elbowed Castiel in the face and jumped up, charging towards Eris with a growl.

Eris didn’t even look at him. She simply snapped her fingers.

The angel’s vessel burst, blood and chunks of meat splurging in every direction. Some of it landed on Eris dress and face, but her expression didn’t vary as she looked straight ahead at Karael.

“You had your chance,” Eris said, with a shrug. She pointed at her with her index.

Karael shouted as a gaping wound opened in her stomach, following the movement of Eris’ finger. It gushed both red blood and silver grace as the angel pathetically tried to move, her face contorted in an expression of pure agony.

“Stop!” she begged. “Stop it!”

She shouted again as her wound deepened, in time with the way Eris twisted her hand.

“Eris.” Castiel held on to the nearest wall and managed to get on his feet. “That’s enough.”

“She hurt you,” Eris replied simply. Her voice sounded calm and collected even over Karael’s screams.

“I said, that’s enough!” Castiel repeated, a little louder.

Eris tilted her head at him. The wound in Karael’s stomach had stopped growing, but she was still sobbing and crying in pain.

For a tense second or two, Eris and Castiel stared at each other across the warehouse. Meg noticed the way Castiel’s grip tightened around the hilt of his blade.

“Eris,” she called her. “Listen to your father. You have to stop.”

Eris turned her gaze towards her.

And Meg saw _her_. Not the little girl that she pretended to be, not the mask of humanity her body allowed her to wear, but the unknowable, terrible, mighty creature that she was underneath.

Meg’s heart sped up and the knot in her stomach became tighter. It was a little like fear mixed with the exhilaration of the first time she’d found herself in Castiel’s arms, knowing full well he would kill her if he could.

With the difference being, Eris could absolutely kill her, right now, with a snap of her fingers. Hell, she could kill her with a thought.

But she wouldn’t.

Meg spoke louder:

“Stop, Eris.”

Eris let out a deep breath and lowered her hand.

Karael’s body dropped to the ground, where she stayed moaning in pain and coughing blood, grace pouring out from her wounds like ray of lights between the fingers she held against it. Eris blinked and her eyes returned to those familiar colors of blue and brown. She was still glaring at Karael, as if she was willing to ditch all the magic tricks and just walk up to her and finish the job with her bare hands.

Castiel stepped in between the two and knelt in front of Karael.

“Castiel.” Karael stretched a hand and held on tightly to his shoulder. Her face was wet with tears. “She’s a monster! You must see it! You can’t let her live! She’ll be the end of us all! You have to kill her!”

For some reason, that seemed to shake Eris just a little. She shifted the weight of her body from one foot to the other.

“I don’t… that’s not…” she mumbled.

Castiel looked at her over his shoulder. His bruised face was slowly recovering its usual aspect, and he could at least open both of his eyes now. Eris went quiet and lowered her gaze. Castiel lifted up his blade.

Meg felt the apprehension growing inside of her for a moment, but it turned out, she didn’t need to worry.

“I’m sorry, sister," Castiel said. "I can’t do that.”

He turned the blade and sank it on the other angel’s chest. Karael let out a strangled sound as her skin glowed with a bright, blinding light. A second later, it was all over.

Castiel stood up and walked towards them, Karael’s blood dripping from the end of his blade. His expression was grave.

“We should leave.”

Neither Meg nor Eris contradicted him. They huddled closer to him and Meg grabbed one of his hands, while Eris took the other.

In the blink of an eye, the warehouse was empty once again.

 

* * *

 

They didn’t move far. They found a motel a few miles down the road. The man behind the counter barely lifted his head when they walked in and requested a room with two queens.

“Family road trip?” he asked, even though they had very clearly not come in with a car, neither of them had a bag with them and there was a suspicious red stain in the skirt of Eris’ white dress. The man, apparently, decided all of those things were none of his business, because he just stood up, grabbed a key at random from the wall and pushed it towards Castiel along with the guest book for him to sign. “Will that be cash or credit?”

They paid with Sam’s counterfeit credit card (again) and retired to the room in silence. Meg was thankful that at least the place didn’t have steps that she’d have to deal with.

As soon as the door was closed behind them, Eris sat down on the nearest bed and raised her chin defiantly at them.

“Well? Are we going to talk about what happened or…?”

Meg had the distinctive impression that she didn’t want to talk about it, but she was running headfirst into the topic to get it out of the way as fast as possible.

Castiel produced a marker from the inside of one his pockets and threw it at Eris.

“First we secure the room. Do you remember the sigils I taught you?”

“Yes,” Eris replied, rolling her eyes as if that was a very obvious, stupid question.

They worked silently and swiftly. Meg evaluated Eris work as she drew the sigils. Her movements were confident and fluid, even if she did sometimes sneak a glance at what Castiel was doing, perhaps to remember what the next trace needed to be. It was almost as if she didn’t believe all of this security measures were really necessary: she could take on whatever walked inside that door with no trouble.

And after what Meg had seen her pull in the warehouse, she was inclined to believe that was the case.

Castiel’s paranoia wasn’t going to let up, however. He double-checked and nodded approvingly at all of Eris' sigils and finally, with a sigh, went to sit on the bed.

“Well, I think it’s safe to say we can’t count on the angels’ help for anything we intend to do in the future.”

No one was particularly surprised.

“They all know what she really is now,” Castiel continued. “Not a Nephilim or a Cambion, but… something else. And half of them would have you dead, while the other… is curious about you.” He explained, turning his attention to Eris. “But not in a benign way. If they were to capture you, you would likely be taken to Heaven and experimented on as a way to… really figure out your nature. What you’re capable of.”

“I’d like to see them try,” Eris said, with a defiant grin. “Perhaps they should just ask Karael.”

It was a mask, of course. Meg knew it by the way it faltered and disappeared the second Castiel stared at her.

“She hurt you, dad!” she said, without Castiel needing to add another word. “What did you expect me to do? Not hurt her back?”

Castiel licked his lips, reflexively, and looked at Meg. She simply shrugged. She didn’t think she was the party qualified to speak on what was morally right in that situation. She would have done exactly what Eris did, if not worse.

“I’m not going to chastise you for saving me,” Castiel said. “I thank you for that. But what you did to Karael was unnecessarily cruel.”

Eris clicked her tongue, but she did scratch her arm and looked down, a slight shade of red growing in her cheeks. So perhaps she was able to experience a modicum of guilt over her actions. She definitely didn’t get that from Meg, so perhaps it was a good sign.

“Eris,” Castiel called her. He ran his hands through his hair, as if that helped him think what to say next. “I understand. You’re, perhaps, one of the mightiest beings to walk on this earth. I didn’t want to admit it at first, but… there’s very little I can do to stop you from doing whatever is it that you’re here to do. Very little _anyone_ can do. But you are my responsibility, so whatever damage you cause, that is on me too, because that means I failed to give you the tools for you to stop yourself.”

Eris slowly raised her eyes at him.

“I don’t…” she started, but stopped. She pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. She looked terribly overwhelmed. Meg felt the impulse to approach her and... put a hand on her shoulder or maybe even hug her. But Eris looked up before she could act on it. “I’m not here to hurt anyone," she said. "I’m not here to _end_ anything. That’s not for me to do.”

“Can you tell us what that means?” Meg asked.

Eris clammed up. As she was wont to do.

“Well, then, whatever it is, let me share something with you that I learned the hard way,” Castiel continued after a pause. “When you’re as powerful as you are, you can make others fear you very easily, and fear may breed obedience, but only in the short term. Compassion, patience… those are the things that you should give if you want them to look up to you.”

“Even when they’re trying to kill me or the people I love?” Eris asked, squinting her eyes with skepticism.

“Especially then.”

Eris bit the inside of her cheek, thinking deeply about everything Castiel had said.

“Did you give up your power?” she asked. Meg couldn’t tell if she’d found this out from Castiel or if this was one of those things she just seemed to know.

“No. And it destroyed me,” Castiel told her, sincerely. “It took a lot of help from my friends and… your mother,” he added, with a soft smile at her, “for me to recover.”

“I barely did anything,” Meg said, crossing her arms over her chest.

Eris and Castiel exchanged a look. They said nothing, but Eris had an eyebrow quirked and Castiel was still smiling softly. Meg had the impression they had just exchanged a joke that she was not privy to.

It annoyed her a little. But also, maybe that was a sign that Eris understood Castiel a little better than she’d thought.

“I should clean this up,” Eris said, looking down at the red stains on her dress.

“Try hydrogen peroxide,” Meg said, before realizing that was a completely useless suggestion. She could just will the stains away.

Eris smiled and stood up to walk inside of the bathroom anyway. The moment she closed the door behind them, Castiel let out a deep, shuddering sigh.

“Well, that was unpleasant,” he said.

“Yeah.” Meg leaned back on her chair. “I’m sorry I even suggested you talked to them.”

“It wasn’t your fault. I should have suspected this is how it would turn out.”

Even as he said those words, he avoided Meg’s eye. He was sitting with his back very rigid and his hands closed in fists over his knees. Meg moved her chair as close as the space between the beds allowed her to and stretched a hand to put it on his forearm.

“I just… I thought that when they saw her, when they understood what she was…” Castiel mumbled.

“Do you understand what she is?”

“No,” Castiel admitted. “Do you?”

He lifted his eyes at her. Meg let her breathing get caught in her throat, let herself immerse in all that blue for a moment before she forced herself to look away.

“Are you afraid of her?” she asked next, because that was what she really needed to know. She needed to hear it.

His hand came to rest on top of hers, strong and warm.

“Meg, I would never hurt her. I couldn’t. No matter what she did.”

Meg desperately hoped the relief she felt didn’t show up in her face.

“Good,” she said. “Because then I'd have to choose, Cas.”

She didn’t add that this would break the heart she didn’t know she had before him, before Eris, before they had become this little strange, dysfunctional family. She didn't say that all of Hell's tortures paled in comparison to her fear that one day they would be torn apart.

But by the serious expression on Castiel’s face and his curt, short nod, she figured he’d understood that anyway.


	11. Chapter 11

Meg was certain there were other ways that she could have spent the hours that followed. Figuring out a way she could convince her demons about what they were going to do with the Cage or an appropriate threat so they would shut up and follow her orders (which, if she was being honest, was certainly more her style).

But Eris had other ideas.

“I don’t want to stay here and watch TV,” she complained when Castiel suggested they do just that while they waited for Sam to call. “Can’t we go for a walk? Go have dinner? Do something?”

She was about to start pacing the room like a tiger in a cage, and honestly, Meg was feeling a little restless herself.

“Take us somewhere, Clarence, will you?” she said.

Castiel frowned at them, as if he wasn’t sure why he should be the one taking them anywhere, but in the end, he agreed with a sigh.

There wasn’t much to see in that little town in the middle of nowhere, but Eris still managed to find something to keep herself entertained anyway: she went straight to small library and found and at least two dozen books she wanted to read. The clerk startled when she deposited her pile in front of him.

“You’re going to read all of that?” he asked.

“I’ve got some time to kill,” Eris said, with a shrug.

Meg laughed as Castiel resignedly pulled out his credit card to pay for it all.

After that, they found a park where there were a bunch of children with their parents playing. Eris and Castiel sat down on the bench next to her and watched them in silence for a while. Meg couldn’t really see the appeal, so she picked one of the books from the bag and started leafing through it. It was some British nonsense about an angel and a demon trying to save the Earth from the Apocalypse. The blurb had made her chuckle when she read it.

“They have no idea, do they?” Eris asked after a while. “How close their world was to ending. How close it may still be.”

Meg lifted her head from the pages.

“No. They don’t know,” Castiel said.

“Everything that happened, all the secrets this world contains… only people like Sam and Dean Winchester know the truth,” Eris continued. “It’s quite unfair that they have to deal with it all.”

“I’m sure Sam and Dean don’t think of it that way.”

Eris turned to him very slowly.

“No?”

“No. They just… do what they must. Always.”

“You admire them,” Eris said. It wasn’t a question.

“If I hadn’t admired them, I wouldn’t have joined their cause,” Castiel said. “I wouldn’t have helped them stop the Apocalypse. And I wouldn’t have met your mother.”

Meg let out a huff before she could stop herself, even though she recognized it was true. If the Winchesters hadn’t fucked everything up, her and Castiel would have been enemies. She would have killed him or, more likely, he would’ve killed her, and that would have been the end of it.

Eris seemed to be thinking the same thing.

“So, in a way, it was their story that allowed mine to exist.” She tilted her head. “That’s very interesting.

Of course, she didn’t elaborate on how or why. Neither Meg nor Cas pressed her. They had learned by now that she didn’t answer any questions she didn’t want to.

“Are you going to miss them when they’re gone?” she continued asking him. “Or do you think you’ll go with them?”

Meg eyed Castiel while he frowned. That was certainly a question that had come out of left field.

“Of course I’m going to miss them. They are my friends, my family, as much as you and Meg are,” he said. “I don’t know what you mean about going with them. I’m not planning on dying any time soon.”

Eris didn’t seem satisfied with that answer.

“If I had it my way, you’d just stay with us,” she said, lowering her voice.

“Eris, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Meg knew. Well, at least she suspected. Eris was wondering if, given the choice, Castiel would give his life for the Winchesters without a thought or care, as he’d done in the past, or if he would stay. For them. With them.

It was a bleak thought and she didn’t like having it. Just like she didn’t like having to consider if Castiel would make her choose between him and their daughter.

She closed the book. The afternoon had definitely taken a turn for the depressing, and it was about to get much worse.

Castiel’s phone rang. He fished it out from inside his pocket.

“Hello, Sam,” he greeted after glancing at his screen for a moment. “Yes, I am with them. No, the… the meeting with the angels didn’t go very well. It’s not of import. Have you found out…?” He made a pause to listen what Sam had to say. His frown deepened. “Yes. Of course. We’ll be on our way.”

He ended the call. He didn’t have to tell them what’d happened: the spell for Adam’s body was ready and it was time they kept their end of the bargain.

“Guess we’re going to Hell,” Meg commented.

“Oh, right now?” Eris asked. She was obviously not fazed about the enormity of that step, because the next thing she asked was: “Can I go home real quick to leave my books there?”

 

* * *

 

Castiel erased all the sigils in their motel room with a wave of his hand.

“They’re going to freak out slightly when I show up with the two of you in tow,” Meg said. “So I suggest you let me do the talking.”

“I’ve never been to another plane of this reality,” Eris commented. Her mismatched eyes were shining with excitement. “It’s going to be very interesting.”

“Yeah,” Meg said, as Castiel came to join them. “Listen, kid, Hell is not exactly a picturesque place.”

“Yeah, I figured.” Eris chuckled. “I mean… it is Hell. I can imagine.”

“No, you really can’t.”

She didn’t want her to be scared. She half-expected her to take it all in stride, as she seemed to take everything else, but there was the underlying feeling that this might be different. Eris knew what her mother was, but Meg believe she wouldn’t really understand it… not until she saw the place that had shaped her, the place Meg had claimed as her kingdom.

She’d told Rowena she wanted Eris to be more like father and she absolutely stood by that, but she wasn’t sure what she’d do if her daughter reacted like an angel would to Hell.

Castiel had been there before, of course. He’d rescued Dean from its very clutches, but not before he’d broken down and picked up the blade himself. All part of the greater plan, of course.

Meg wondered if she was as blinded by her plans as her father had been by his. She pushed those thoughts aside. She didn’t have the luxury of questioning what they were going to do. Michael needed to be dealt with, as soon as possible.

“Well, in any case, I’ll see it soon enough, right?” Eris said.

Meg wished she didn’t sound as preppy about it as she did.

“Right,” she sighed as Castiel approached her chair. “Well, I guess _now_ we’re having a family road trip.”

Eris laughed, but Castiel didn’t. He seemed as preoccupied about what they had to do as Meg did. If she didn’t know him any better, she would have said he was paling.

“Are you okay?” she asked him.

Castiel clenched his jaw for a moment before he said:

“Don’t worry about me. Let’s just go.”

That wasn’t exactly an answer, but if he was going to be as cryptic as Eris…

“Alright. Hold my hand.”

She didn’t even have to focus all that much. Hell called for its ruler, like a hook in the pit of her stomach pulling from her that she could ignore most of the time.

Now, however, as her fingers intertwined with Eris and Castiel’s, she let the sensation overcome her. It was so easy, like letting gravity take a hold, like letting go.

When she opened her eyes again, she was in the middle of her Throne Room once more. To Eris and Castiel, the change came less naturally, so they fumbled on their feet, blinking like owls, trying to adjust to what they were seeing.

“Alright,” Eris said after a few seconds. “This isn’t so bad.”

Meg wished that this was all she had to see about it. She straightened her shoulders and called out:

“Talbot!”

In the blink of an eye, the doors swung open and Talbot hurried inside.

“You’re back!” she exclaimed.

She sounded slightly surprised, but Meg couldn’t blame her. She had been gone for around three days topside, which meant Talbot had been handling things down there for almost a year.

“I am.”

“And you… brought… _them_ ,” Talbot added, her eyes opening a little wider when she noticed Meg’s company.

“Hello, again,” Eris greeted her jovially.

“Weren’t you shorter?” Talbot asked, tilting her head.

“Talbot, call a meeting of the council,” Meg said. “We’ve figured out a way to defeat Michael.”

She omitted a lot of things when she told them about it. She didn’t tell them about Sam and Jack’s involvement, she didn’t tell them they already had a weapon that could kill Michael and she definitely didn’t make any mention about Eris’ nature. She was certain she could pass as an angel if they didn’t look too closely at her and she could remind Talbot later that it was in her best interest to keep her mouth shut.

For the time being, she only needed them to agree to the plan. Which turned out to be a lot easier said than done.

“So… these two angels are going to walk into the Cage and yank out a crazy archangel?” Guy was the first one to speak after Meg was done explaining the plan. A sarcastic grin extended across his face. “I don’t see anything going wrong with that at all.”

“Are you trying to be cute, Guy?” Meg asked him, tilting her head ever so slightly towards him.

Guy swallowed and immediately returned to his subservient state.

“Of course not, your Majesty. It’s just… you have to admit that it’s all too risky. And collaborating with angels, no less…”

Meg had noticed that they all kept throwing nervous glances towards Castiel and Eris. They had both stood behind her chair while she spoke, but while Castiel was perfectly still, with his shoulders rigid, is expression blank and his chin up, Eris wouldn’t stop fidgeting. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, crossed her arms and then subsequently let them hang by her sides, as if she didn’t know what to do with them. She tried to imitate her father’s militaristic posture, but that lasted for about two seconds before she turned to look at Marleen when she spoke:

“Your Majesty, I am by no means questioning your plan,” she started, in a tone of voice that clearly indicated she was about to do just that. “But if the archangel Michael were to escape…”

“That’s what they are here for,” Meg said.

“We have come to an agreement so Michael will be taken peacefully back to Heaven,” Castiel said, speaking in his most formal, drone on tone. “That is all you need to know.”

Marleen and Guy exchanged a glance, so quick Meg almost wouldn’t have noticed. She was about to challenge them to say something else when someone chuckled at her left.

“You’re just a bunch of spineless morons, is what you are,” Leon declared. He had both feet crossed over the table, but he put them down and leaned forwards with a smile that reminded Meg of a Hellhound’s snarl upon his face. “I have been itching for a fight. So have the demons I’ve selected for you, my Queen,” he added, with a brief bow towards Meg. “We won’t disappoint you. We’ll follow you inside the Cage itself if we must.”

“I agree,” Talbot added. “The deranged Michael we have in Limbo is a ticking bomb. He could escape whenever the next… unexplainable cosmic event happens. Probably brought upon by something the Winchesters did,” she added, with a slight roll of her eyes. “So it’s better to defuse it and let the other angels deal with the second Michael topside.”

“One Michael is already bad enough. What if this one escapes their control?” Guy protested, but it was clear that there was no point in arguing anymore. Everything that needed to be said had been said.

“Leon, gather your forces. I want as many of them as you can get. We’ll station them as we go down. Marleen and Guy will stay up here, in the garden, to make sure everything keeps going as usual. Talbot will come with me,” she added. Talbot opened her mouth, but one look from Meg was enough to shush her. “The angels are not to be disturbed in any way,” Meg continued saying. “And they will not disturb our businesses in any way. These are the terms of the agreement.” She made a pause to glare at her council, so her words could sink far in their little brains. “And I will tolerate no violations of it, do you hear me?”

There was no need to add a threat at the end. Eris and Castiel’s presence was enough.

She instructed Leon and Talbot to have the horde ready in an hour, tops, and dismissed the council. As soon as they were out of the door, Meg allowed herself a brief sigh.

Castiel cleared his throat.

“You… you seem to be running things smoothly,” he commented. She wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or simply an observation.

“As smoothly as I can, knowing any of them would stab me in the back if I take my eyes off them for too long."

Castiel sat down on the chair next to her, that up until that point had been occupied by Talbot.

“Meg…” he said, stretching his hand to touch hers. “I think we should talk about…”

Before he could continue, Meg noticed that something was missing.

“Where’s Eris?” she asked, a jolt of panic coming down her spine.

Castiel didn’t seem as concerned. He simply sighed with clear exasperation.

“I told you, she is sneaky.”

They found her two rooms away, standing outside on a decaying balcony. She stood with her face to the horizon, towards the perpetual twilight, and the woods that contained the souls of the damned. Meg was pleased to see it had grown several miles since the last time she was there, but she showed no signs of those feelings as they approached Eris.

“You shouldn’t be wandering off like that.”

Eris didn’t turn to look at them.

“This place… it’s colder than I imagined,” she commented, absently.

Meg and Castiel looked at each other. She was relieved to find he didn’t know what to say either.

“Yeah, I supposed it can be,” Meg admitted. “Lucifer was also colder than people thought. All the fire and brimstone is a bit of false advertisement.”

“You created these woods?” Eris asked.

Meg supposed she shouldn’t be surprised about that question. Only demons knew how the Hellscape worked, but then again, Eris did have a bit of demon in herself.

“Not exactly.” Meg rolled closer to her and stationed her chair next to Eris. “Things don’t work like that here. Hell isn’t so much a place as it is… a construct. You see the woods because I am the Queen and I want you to see them. It would change if I wanted it to change.”

Eris reflected on this silently.

“And the souls?” she asked. “Were all of them… evil? Do all of them deserve this?”

Meg bit the inside of her cheek. That was a very delicate question, but she couldn’t lie about it. Eris would know if she lied.

“Most of them do. But some of them are here because they made deals with a demon. They weren’t always selfish deals either. Some asked for money or for fame or for people they hated to die, but others used their deal to save someone they loved or to escape bad situations. It doesn’t really matter. They all end up here eventually.”

“And then you turn them into demons through torture.”

“Pretty much,” Meg admitted. “I told you it wasn’t nice down here.”

Eris bit the inside of her cheek, pensively.

“It’s not fair,” she whispered in the end.

Meg took a deep breath.

“Eris… I am what I am and I do what I have to do. I have never…”

“I’m not talking about what you do,” Eris interrupted her. “I’m taking about… all of it. It isn’t fair.”

It was easy to forget that underneath it all, she was still very much a little kid, with very simple notions of what was right and wrong.

“Well, what can you do?” Meg asked, shrugging. “You can’t abolish Hell. Even if you were to kill all of the demons like Michael wants to do, I think it’d still be here. It would be just… even worse, because all the new demons would be boarded up inside.”

“This was never part of His plan.”

Eris and Meg turned towards Castiel. He was leaning against a column, looking away from them with his hands inside of his pockets.

“My Father,” he continued, “He never planned for this. Lucifer wanted to rule the world, he wanted to show that he was like our Father, but he could only corrupt what it was already created. So God created this place to lock Lucifer and all his creations away.”

“God created Hell to punish his son for trying to be like him,” Eris repeated. There was a note of bitterness in her tone. “Do you think he’d punish anyone who tried something like that again?”

“I don’t think so, no,” Castiel replied, lifting his eyes at her. “I know He would.”

“Oh. Well, I’ll keep that in mind.” Eris hugged herself, shuddering as if she was suddenly cold.

The conversation stopped because they all heard the steps coming towards them. Talbot appeared and looked at all of them silently, an undecipherable expression upon her face.

“Leon and the horde are ready,” she announced simply.

“Good,” Meg said. She pushed her chair forward, a little away from Eris and Castiel. She wasn’t sure going down to confront a mad archangel would be any worse than staying there and continue that theological conversation, but she was more than ready to stop thinking about all those existential questions that Eris kept asking. “Let’s get to it, then.”

 

* * *

 

She had been in Limbo before. She was there the day the Cage opened for the first time, along with several other demons that Lilith had chosen to bow to Lucifer as soon as he was released. Back then it had almost been a celebration going down there, ready to greet their Father, their creator, their god. She had been ecstatic as she walked down the long corridor surrounded by the bones of the damn, she had felt like the perpetual storm in its skies were singing along to their pure euphoria.

Now she was tense. Her chair rattled over the cobblestones as she headed the horde that followed her down, all marching in step like a true martial force. It was more like a small army, really, but each of the demons had been handpicked by Leon and she trusted him when he told her that they were much ready to follow her orders and risk their very existences to catch Michael in case he got out of control.

No one was celebrating. They simply moved forwards, with their faces serious and silent, reflecting her own growing nervousness every time they descended another level.

Castiel and Eris walked by her side, with Talbot and Leon a few steps behind them. Castiel was once again acting like a soldier, with his back straightened and his chin up, looking forwards and walking in long strides, his blade shining in his hand.

Eris kept looking everywhere instead. She didn’t seem scared, but her eyes were wide open and she constantly turned to look over shoulders or she tried to stretch her hand to touch the bones on the walls. It was as if she wanted to take in as much as she could, as if more than fear or repulsion she felt… curiosity.

Meg made a note to ask her about it later. It would be definitely interesting to hear what she had to say.

For now, however…

The corridor ended and the cobbles became a hard floor of black rock that made the wheels of her chair came to an abrupt stop. Meg raised her hand so the horde halted behind her and remained in the corridor. There was simply not enough space on the cornice for all of them, so only her, Eris and Castiel moved forwards.

They were in the deepest level of Hell, the very end of perdition. Once upon a time, the place had been inaccessible for anyone, except perhaps God himself. Lilith had been trapped there and her death had opened it for anybody to come, though no one ever did if they had the choice.

The air was colder now, pressing down on them as they contemplated the open, sterile space in front of them. The black rock they were standing on seemed to stretch for miles and miles, infinitely plain and infinitely dark, except for the flashes of lightning coming from the eternal storm above. Meg knew, however, that if they tried to go further they would eventually found themselves exactly where they had started, as if that plain was actually spherical but they couldn’t see its curvature. Reality itself seemed meant even less than it did in the upper regions of Hell, as if the limits of it became blurry beyond that point. It was dizzying even for creatures like them.

Of course, to make their way across it, they would first have to walk around the huge open crater right in front of them.

“Is it…?” Eris asked.

“It’s down there, yes,” Meg said.

Her daughter had been so confident topside, but now in the actual face of what she had to do, she seemed hesitant. She swallowed and took a single step, but stopped again.

“Eris, you don’t have to,” Castiel said, suddenly. “I could…”

“No, you can’t,” Eris said. “You’re not strong enough. I have to do this.”

She stepped forwards before they could stop her. Meg forced her chair to move forwards, the wheels jumping over the rocky surface, with Castiel promptly following them. They stood at the edge of the crater, looking down on it.

There were flashes of lightning down there as well. The Cage hanged in the air, suspended by long thick chains of the same dark material. It looked like iron, but Meg was certain that it was something entirely different, something perhaps only the angels could have created. And maybe not even them.

It was quiet and still. In the past it had rattled and shaken when Lucifer was fighting to get free from it, and Talbot had told her that Hell itself had heard them scream a few years back, when the Darkness had been released. Now, it was entirely silent.

Eerily so.

“Are we sure he’s in there?” Meg asked.

“He has to be,” Castiel replied. He pulled out the cuffs from inside of his jacket, carved with symbols and spells that would restrain Michael once he was out. The demons hanged back, with their weapons up.

Meg had the strange fear that none of it would be enough. She almost wanted to scream to Eris to get back, to stop, that they would find another way, any other way.

But her daughter was already kneeling down on the edge of the precipice, pressing both her hands on the rocky surface.

For a second or two, nothing happened.

Slowly, though, the darkness around them started receding. It was barely noticeable at first, like a winter dawn breaking after the longest night, and Eris was the sun: her skin glowed white and brighter with each second, each beating of Meg’s agitated heart. There was no high-pitched sound this time, or perhaps the thunders roaring over them was drowning it.

But even over them, the rattle of the chains echoed against the walls, as if there were invisible arms pulling them and disturbing their eons of holding on the Cage among them. The floor rumbled and quaked violently, a tremor that Meg was certain could be felt all through Hell, and maybe even on earth.

The Cage rose above the edge of the crater, suspended in the air by an invisible power. It was a black, ugly structure and it looked small and miserable, but she knew the inside was larger than it seemed. There was only one door, also chained up and locked with big padlocks. Some of them were cracked open, but others still remained firmly in place. Meg had a second to wonder if those padlocks were real or, like everything else in Hell, that was the shape they took in her mind so she could understand what she was seeing.

Eris stood up with her back very rigid. Her long black hair cascaded in curls over her leather jacket and her forearms were alight, as if all her power was concentrated there. Meg was certain that if she’d been looking at them, they would’ve been able to see her eyes completely black, except for the two silver spots in the middle.

Eris raised her left hand, her middle finger and thumb pressed together.

Meg held her breath and all of Hell grew still, expecting.

The snap resonated even louder than the chains and the thunder, louder than her doubts and her fears, so loud that for a second Meg thought she’d gone deaf.

The padlocks and chains that kept the Cage locked dissolved in thin air.

Then, after what felt like an eternity, Meg heard another sound: the creaking of the hinges, as the door slowly swung open.


	12. Chapter 12

Meg half-expected the archangel to bolt out of the Cage and start smiting them all, and she was ready to push Eris out of the way if that happened. Instead, absolutely nothing happened.

There was nothing inside of the Cage. Meg blinked several times, trying to adjust her focus to the pure darkness that swirled inside it, like dark, heavy smoke. No, it wasn’t empty. As the smoke dissipated, she could make out a figure in one of the corners.

He was crouched down with his back turned to them, his arms around his body as if he was somehow holding himself together, completely still.

Or at least it was so until Castiel took a step forwards and muttered:

“Michael?”

The figure shook and shuddered. It said something Meg couldn’t quite understand, both because he was whispering softly and because the words sounded strange and foreign.

“Michael,” Castiel called him, and said something else, in the fluid, soft language of angels.

The figure only shrunk more and placed his hands over his ears, still with his back turned to them. Castiel approached the Cage’s door, still speaking in Enochian.

“Do you know what he’s saying?” she asked Eris.

“Uh… brother… something, something… home… I have no idea,” she ended up confessing. “I didn’t really pay attention when he tried teaching me.”

“Michael,” Castiel called once again. He looked at them and clutched the angelic handcuffs.

Meg understood and stretched her hand to let her angel blade slide from the inside of her sleeve towards her. Eris was unarmed, but she still raised her hands a little, preparing herself.

Castiel stepped into the Cage. It swung from side to side with the added weight, but they could still see him inside through the open door.

“Brother. It’s Castiel,” he said. “Do you remember me? Do you remember where you are?”

He stretched his hand and put it on the archangel’s shoulder.

Michael howled, loudly, like a wounded animal, or like ten thousand wounded animals howling in unison. Meg gritted her teeth as the horde behind her retreated as if it was one. Eris flinched, but she remained exactly where she was.

Castiel jumped backwards, surprised as Michael turned around to look at him.

Meg surprised that he seemed so young, a boy of no older than nineteen, maybe twenty years old. Well, he would have seen like it, if it wasn’t because his face was contorted in an anguished, pained expression, his eyes almost popping out.

“No!” he shouted, as he pressed his back against the Cage’s wall. “No! Why have you come here? What have you done?!”

“Michael, listen to me…” Castiel started, but Michael screamed again.

The Cage shook violently over the emptiness that waited underneath it. Eris immediately stretched her hand. Out of nowhere, the walls around them broke apart and more chains shot out of them. Their hooks attached themselves to the Cage, stabilizing it a little, but it still shook and shudder as Michael tried to get as far away as Castiel as the space inside it allowed him to.

“Close it! Close it again!” Michael demanded, shouting so loud now that his throat might have hurt had he been human. “Close it before it’s too late, before he escapes!”

“Brother, Lucifer is no longer here,” Castiel said, extending a hand towards him, but Michael bellowed and shrunk before he could touch him. “There’s only you. And I’m here to take you to Heaven. They might be able to heal you there…”

“I’m not… talking about… Lucifer!”

Michael doubled over as if he was going to vomit, with his hands digging into his scalp. The chains rattled and threatened to break, so Eris invoked to more to keep the Cage in place, opening her arms wide as her hands shone once more. Her hair was fluffy with ecstatic electricity and Meg could see a drop of sweat forming in her burrow, as if keeping the Cage opened and in its place was costing her a lot of energy.

“Castiel!” Meg called out, alarmed.

“Brother, please…” Castiel pleaded again.

Michael shouted something that might have been Enochian, but his voice was so broken that it was impossible to tell, impossible to distinguish any sound that made sense in it.

Except… except not, because Meg recognized what came out of his throat next.

A chuckle.

His shoulders shook and his laughter grew louder and louder, until it became a manic, thunderous cackle. He straightened his back and slowly lowered his trembling hands.

“Castiel,” he said. His voice was now softer, different. As if a completely different person had taken over his body. “ _Of course_ it’d be you who’d be stupid enough to open the Cage!”

Castiel took a step backwards. His hand gripped around the hilt of his blade tighter.

“Who are you?”

“Come on!” the other entity answered. His mouth stretched in a maddened grin. “I know I’ve changed a lot, but don’t you remember me?”

Meg saw it even before the darkened soul inside came floating through the surface, even before the corrupted aura around him ate up the soft light that the archangel emitted. Even before his eyes turned an inexpressive milky white.

“Castiel!” she shouted again, propelling her chair forwards.

She didn’t know what she could do, she had no idea how she could help.

“Mom, stay back!” Eris screamed.

The Cage’s door slammed shut and it shook violently once more. The white-eyed demon had grabbed Castiel by the neck and pushed him against the Cage’s wall. Eris’ chains tensed up and jangled, as she let out a soft yelp of pain and surprise. Castiel raised his hand, the blade ready, but the demon grabbed his wrist before he could do any damage.

“You… you son of a bitch!” the demon shouted, the pure heart burning in his expression. “You think I didn’t notice when it got a lot less crowded in here? When you rescued Sam but let _me_ to rot? When Lucifer had suddenly no one else to use as a punching bag?!”

“Adam…” Castiel breathed out.

Adam Milligan. Meg’s heart sank.

“I found another way to keep him entertained, though!” Adam added, with another chuckle. “He didn’t think I had the guts to torture anybody, but he taught me how. Oh, and Michael didn’t like it one bit, let me tell you…”

Suddenly, his body jerked backwards, releasing Castiel. The door opened again and Meg wasted no time: she lifted her hand and pulled back with a shot of power running through her as she did. Castiel flew through the open door and landed at her feet. Meg pulled him by the collar while Adam’s body contorted and shook.

“Let me go, you coward!” he screamed out, and then in a slighter deeper voice. “No! I won’t! You must be contained…!”

“Eris!” Meg shouted as Castiel held on to her chair and staggered to his feet. “Close it!”

“But what about Dean?” Eris protested.

“Close it now!” Castiel coughed. “Eris!”

Eris looked up at the Cage, her frown deepening as she watched the man inside the Cage writhe and scream as Adam and Michael fought for control.

“No. I can still pull him out!” she argued.

Meg opened her mouth to tell her not to, but the words never left her mouth.

The loud high-pitch sound of an angel gathering powering up echoed through Limbo, but neither Castiel nor Eris were doing that. Meg watched with horror while Adam, now kneeling near the door, became aglow with a blinding light. The shadow of his wings spanned through the entirety of the Cage, the giant silhouette of the archangel shone through the openings.

Castiel grabbed her head and pull her face against his stomach.

“Close your eyes!” he shouted. “All of you, close your eyes!”

It happened faster than Meg could tell.

She kept her eyes firmly shut and her face pressed against Castiel’s body, but Michael’s grace still caressed her skin when he left Adam’s body: it was like standing too close to a fire, the heat biting but not enough to burn her. She heard a lot of demons that hadn’t covered their eyes gasp and moan in pain and the rattling of the chains as one by one they broke away.

It was over in a second, in a fraction of a second.

When she opened her eyes again, all she could see was Eris down on her knees next to the edge of the crater, gasping for air, and the Cage plunging into the darkness below.

She almost expected it hear it crashing and breaking down, but of course, no sound came, except the deafening silence that followed their complete failure.

Meg breathed out slowly, still holding unto Castiel with shaking hands. He was immobile, his eyes fixed on where the Cage had been a moment before, with an arm around her shoulders, and the other stretched out, gripping his blade as if he was going to face an invisible enemy.

“My Queen!” Talbot called from behind her.

Meg realized that in a moment of panic, Castiel and her had held onto to each other in front of her entire army of demons. If she hadn’t been so worried about the archangel and the white-eyed demon they had just pushed into endless darkness, she might have been worried about that.

She still made sure to let go of Castiel quickly before she turned around.

She shouldn’t have worried, though: the demons had scattered. Some of them, despite Leon’s assurance that they’d fight and died for her, had cowardly fled through the corridor, trying to reach the upper levels of Hell. Meg couldn’t really judge them, not when she saw what’d happened to the others.

Some of them had been smart enough and covered their eyes when Castiel had warned them to, but others were on the floor, knocked down and softly crying out in pain. Their eye sockets were fuming craters on their faces.

“What should we do?” one of the unharmed demons asked.

Meg looked behind her, to where Castiel was kneeling next to Eris and softly talking to her. Castiel couldn’t heal them (would he even want to heal them?), but maybe their daughter would have a better chance at it.

“Pick them up, take them to the garden. We’ll decide later.”

Leon quickly started pointing at the demons to pick up the harm ones and going back through the corridor.

Talbot stood next to her, with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Well, that did not work out the way you were expecting to, did it?”

Meg glared at her. What did she expect her to say? That it had been a complete and absolute fiasco? She wasn’t going to, of course. Not because it wasn’t true; she just didn’t appreciate Talbot’s tone in pointing it out.

“Make sure everybody gets back upstairs,” Meg said, turning her chair around.

Eris was sitting down and sort of leaning against Castiel at the edge of the crater now. She had her eyes closed and her face was pale when Meg moved closer.

"Is she okay?" she asked, trying to sound not entirely interested in the answer.

"I think she just overexerted herself," Castiel explained. "Give us a few seconds..."

Meg glanced briefly at the retreating army and noticed that Talbot hadn't followed her orders. On the contrary, she was standing at the corridor's end, staring in their direction. Of course, she already knew the truth about Castiel and Eris and who they were to Meg. So Meg had to wonder what the hell it was that she wanted.

"Can you stand up?" she asked, turning her attention back to Eris.

"I think so," she muttered. Her voice was hoarse, as if she too had been screaming nonstop. She grabbed unto Meg's knee with one hand and to Castiel's shoulder with the other before staggering to her feet. "I'm sorry, mom. I tried," she said, lowering her voice.

"It was a long shot anyway," Meg replied. "We'll talk later."

She turned to head out to the corridor once again...

Something was wrong. She looked down at the wheels, but of course, there was nothing on the surface they could have stuck to and the engine of the chair used her own demonic energy, so why wasn't it moving?

Eris and Castiel had already moved forwards and Meg opened her mouth to call for them.

Her chair tilted backwards.

Meg let out a choked out gasp as suddenly the gravity from the abyss of the Cage seem to take a hold of her and pulled her down towards it. She lunged forwards and landed on the rocky surface face first, groaning in pain and surprise. She watched in horror as her chair balanced on the edge of the crater and then fell down into the open emptiness.

The hand that had pulled it down was holding on to the edge and she knew exactly to whom it belong even before he crawled up towards the cornice.

Adam's eyes were white once again when they settled on her.

Meg opened her mouth to scream out a warning, but the other demon was on her in the blink of an eye. He grabbed her by the ankle and pulled her closer to him, his mouth contorted in a fierce snarl.

"Meg!" Castiel's voice came from somewhere to her right, but she couldn't turn to look at him, because Adam stood up with her in tow.

His fist closed like a shackle around Meg's neck, cutting out her breathing. Her feet hanged above the ground like a rag doll when he picked her up. She grabbed unto his arm, sinking her nails as far as she could through the thin fabric of his shirt, but he barely seemed to notice at all. He wasn't even looking at her and his strength was so immense that Meg knew right then and there that, Queen of Hell or not, she barely stood a chance against him.

She was going to die. Again.

_Fuck._

"Let her go!" Eris demanded, a hysteric note in her voice and Meg's stomach flipped.

No. She couldn't die like this. She couldn't let her daughter see her dying like this.

She let one hand hang by her side. It was a good thing Adam was too busy mocking Castiel and Eris to notice what she was trying to do.

"Why?" Adam asked, tilting his head. "As a thanks because she was dumb enough to open the Cage?" He laughed softly and turned his attentions to the straggling demons. "Is this your Queen? Really? This broken, pathetic, angel whore?"

Meg felt the fury rise to her throat like bile. She allowed herself one glance at her demons, her court: they were standing back, their primitive weapons made of bones and sharp torture knives would be of little use against someone like Adam, but most of them seemed decided to fight nonetheless.

But would they die for her if Adam kept talking?

"Oh, you don't know?" he asked, with a half-hearted chuckle. "Haven't you taken a good look at that little girl? Michael knew it the moment he saw her... which means I know it too, now."

Castiel took a step to place himself between Adam and Eris.

"What have you done to him?"

"Nothing." Adam shrugged. "I just evicted him. I've been strong enough to do that for a while, but it was much more fun to keep him on a leash. I knew you were going to close the door and leave us to rot again, so I just… took a little leap of faith.” He chuckled as if it was the funniest thing he’d said. “And now that I’m out, I’m going to do what I’ve been fantasizing about for so long. I’m going to kill my brothers.” He lifted an open arm towards Castiel. “But first, I think I’ll start with you…”

“No!” Eris screamed out and Meg took that as her cue.

She sank her angel blade right on the spot between Adam’s shoulders and neck. He bellowed in pain and let go of her, as black blood splashed out of his artery. Meg landed on her back and immediately sat up. The stab wouldn’t kill him, she knew: white-eyed demons never just _died_.

But it was a start.

She grabbed the helm of his shirt so he wouldn’t get away from her and punched him on the crotch and then the stomach as hard as she could. He grabbed her wrist when she was going to punch him again, but it didn’t matter: Leon, Castiel and three other demons jumped him all at the same time.

Someone grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her away from the fight before she got trampled. Talbot and Eris were both by her side, pulling her up and away from the fight. Meg opened her mouth to tell them something —that they should run, that she could go up against Adam still, that they needed to call for reinforcements— but she never got to.

With a gesture of his hands, Adam pushed all of his opponents away, making them fly in various directions, including down the Cage’s crater. Their screams echoed and then extinguished themselves.

Adam pulled from the angel blade sticking out of him, his eyes open and manic as more blood gushed down his shirt. Eris stepped forwards, opening her hands, almost daring him to come at her and fight.

The demon did no such thing. He simply turned his back on them and fled towards the corridor, pushing aside anyone who got in his way.

“After him!” Meg ordered, but even before Leon and some of the surviving demons got to their feet to follow him, she knew it would be useless.

He would find an open that would lead him to Earth in no time. Dammit, with that level of power, he could tear one open for sure.

Castiel sat up from the rocky floor, holding the side of his torso, and exchanged a look with Meg. She knew they were both thinking the same thing.

They needed to warn Sam about this, yesterday.

 

* * *

 

“You can’t be leaving again!” Talbot shouted.

Meg barely looked up from the soul-conversion rates that Marleen had pushed in front of her. They were really boring graphs and numbers that she could barely focus on. When they returned to the upper levels of Hell, to the garden, all the demons that had remained there reported the same thing: they had felt earthquakes and the sky had turned into a nasty shade of blood red when the Cage had been opened.

Yes, they had felt it when Michael got ejected. It had been like watching a geyser of white light project itself upwards. Some more demons had been blinded in the process and they had to be put away in one of the cells to calm down (Guy’s idea).

Marleen, however, was too much of a bureaucrat to let something like “the realm I now inhabit seemingly falling apart at the seams” and “random chaos all around” stop her from jotting down her numbers and projections. Meg had the feeling Marleen actually enjoyed doing this and damn, she had met some demons with freaky fetishes in the past, but this was ridiculous and a little terrifying.

Eris and Castiel left almost immediately after the disastrous stint in Limbo.

“I need to find out what happened to Michael, where he went and…” Castiel said, his words trialing off. He closed his fists at the sides of his body. “And we also need to stop Adam.”

Meg knew exactly what he was thinking. He was sitting across the table from her, so she stretched her hand to touch his. He slowly raised his eyes at her.

“Cas, it wasn’t your fault,” she said. “You couldn’t have known this would happen. None of us could imagine it. And the same thing goes for you,” Meg added, raising her voice so it would reach Eris.

She was standing once again in the decaying balcony, with her back turned to them and her arms tightly wrapped around her body. She’d barely said a word since they’re returned from Limbo.

Now, however, she slowly turned down to face them.

“Of course it was my fault,” she said. “I wasn’t strong enough. I thought I could…”

“It wasn’t your fault, Eris,” Castiel repeated.

Eris clicked her tongue and looked away again. Meg didn’t know what to say to her. She only hoped that Eris could believe it one day.

They stayed in silence for a moment. There were still so many things unsaid and none of them knew where to begin saying them.

“Did you know?” Castiel asked in the end. “About how white-eyed demons are made.”

Meg considered lying for a moment and saying she had no idea, but she decided against it. As always, Castiel deserved to know the truth.

“I heard rumors. Legends. They said that when Lucifer created Lilith, there weren’t enough humans on the earth, so he had her torture an angel instead to turn her. Alastair always bragged about having tortured angels back in his day, but I thought he was just saying that to impress his apprentices. I don’t think any of us even believed angels were really real until we all started gearing up for the Apocalypse.” She made a pause. “I don’t know what happened to those angels, Cas.”

Castiel didn’t make any more questions. He simply stood up, with his back very straight.

“We need to go back and warn Sam.”

“Alright,” Meg replied. She tried not to be hurt about the fact he wasn’t looking in her direction. “I have to fix the mess down here. It won’t take more than a few weeks, so… I’ll probably be there later tonight.”

“Very well. Let’s go, Eris.”

Eris slowly stepped back from the balcony. She had a blank expression in her face and Meg knew right away that something was wrong with her. She usually wore her emotions on her sleeve to the point it was almost heartbreaking to see her this serious.

“You really won’t take long?” she asked.

“I promise. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Eris nodded to indicate she believed her and then did something that managed to surprise Meg: she leaned over and gave her a tight hug.

“Okay. I’ll see you soon, mom,” she muttered.

Meg later would wonder why it had disconcerted her so much. Daughters hugged their mothers. When she was little, Eris had climbed on her lap or hugged all the time, it wasn’t as if it was something new.

Eventually, she’d come to the conclusion that it had surprised her because it had been so normal. Since the confrontation with Karael… hell, way before that. Since she’d seen her have a go at Michael and seen her send away Death herself with a snap of her fingers, Meg had been looking at Eris differently.

That had been a mistake. No matter how powerful she was and how many secrets she claimed to know, Eris was still a little girl underneath it all. And she needed her. For whatever reason, she’d decided Meg was her mother and nothing was going to change her mind, so Meg had no option other than stepping up to the role.

That was why she felt annoyed when Talbot walked in the Council room while Meg was most definitely _not_ reading Marleen’s reports and demanded to know if she was leaving.

“Yeah, so what if I am?” she asked, tiredly. “Did you get me a new chair like I asked you to?”

Talbot tightened her lips and closed the room’s door behind her.

“Meg, you can’t leave!” she argued. “There’s so much to do still. We have to regroup the horde, we have to find something to do with the blind demons…”

“What do you mean something to do with them?” Meg tilted her head.

“Well… I thought Leon had told you…”

Meg glared at her. Yes, Leon had suggested it would be merciful to simply kill all those who had been blinded by Michael, but Meg had argued against that with simple, cold math: they couldn’t afford to lose anyone right then.

She used a different argument with Talbot, one that hit a little closer to home.

“So would have me put to the blade too because I can’t walk?”

Talbot was self-aware enough to have an expression of shame cross her face.

“That’s different. You’ll heal.”

“Says who?” Meg asked, crooking an eyebrow.

Talbot preferred to change the topic.

“Meg, you just can’t… you just can’t leave right now, do you hear me? Stay at least a year. It won’t even be two days topside. You have to stay so others will stop questioning your leadership…”

“Who exactly is questioning my leadership?”

Talbot swallowed, which was strange, because Meg hadn’t asked that question with any inflexion in her voice that would make her think she was angry. She was, though, she was just trying her best to hide it. She didn’t think she succeeded, if Talbot’s hesitation to speak was anything to go by.

“Not Leon. He is definitely loyal to you,” Talbot admitted. “I can’t know what Marleen thinks. But Guy does question the fact that you disappear for so long…”

“And you?” Meg asked, point blank.

Talbot was smart enough not to pretend otherwise.

“I have wondered if you didn’t prefer to be up there,” she admitted. “With them.”

What kind of question was that? Of course Meg preferred to be topside with her family. But somebody had to run Hell and she preferred it to do it herself, because that way she could be sure no demon would go after Eris.

And if they did, she had the power to punish them for it.

She said none of those things. Talbot shifted in her seat, as if she was uncomfortable with Meg’s glare.

“I have to ask,” she said. “You and the angel… was that just some sort of agreement to create the girl or is it… still going on?”

Meg had lived long enough to know that nothing was really permanent. But she knew that wasn’t what Talbot was really asking.

“That is none of your business.”

“Still going on, then.” Talbot threw her head back as her eyes opened wide. “You love him?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m the Queen of Hell. I can’t afford that kind of dealings, especially with an angel.”

She realized she sounded like a complete hypocrite saying that, but she preferred that over admitting the truth. And the truth was, that her relationship with Castiel was still none of Talbot’s business.

“I am going back to deal with the mess we’ve made,” Meg concluded. “If you want me here, running things, then the best you could do is stop asking me stupid questions and help me. Did you get me the damn chair or not?”

Talbot’s expression was blank. Meg kept staring at her while she gathered up her emotions and finally spoke:

“Yes. It’s in the Throne Room.”

“Good.” Meg gathered Marleen’s reports and stacked them up together for someone else to read. “I’m going to need you to do something else as well.”

Talbot stared at her silently for a moment before bowing her head.

“Anything you need, my Queen.”

And that was exactly what Meg wanted to hear.


	13. Chapter 13

Eris and Castiel weren’t at the cabin in Whitefish. Meg sat in her new chair in the middle of the living room, with her arms crossed over her chest, looking around in silence. She knew the next logical place to look for them was at the Winchesters’ bunker and that she should head there soon, but she still wanted to take a moment to reflect on everything that’d happened.

Castiel pulling her out of the Empty with Rowena’s help. Her stint at being human that had fallen apart when Jack showed up to ask her for help. The first failed attempt to rescue Dean. And then, of course, her daughter.

It shouldn’t have been possible. The body she was wearing had been re-built through magic after the Empty, but even so, she was a demon. Her presence inside it should have been enough to freeze it in a permanent, unchanging state: she wouldn’t grow old or tired or hungry, meaning, she wouldn’t have the necessary biological processes to get pregnant. Not unless she wanted to, just like she could will herself to eat or sleep.

But she hadn’t wanted Eris. She hadn’t planned for something like that. So how could it be possible?

She vaguely remembered the stuck-up British Man of Letters telling her that angels laying with humans always lead to offspring, and how she’d laughed it off back then. But Castiel had been as shocked as her was when that happened, so Eris’ entire existence couldn’t just be explained away by Castiel’s super-angelic sperm.

No, there had to be something else. She needed answers, and she knew exactly who could give them to her.

In any other occasion, she might have needed to kill someone or at the very least, to do some kind of ritual to invoke her, but she felt in her gut that none of that would be really necessary. She threw her head back and simply called:

“Billie.”

A gust of wind agitated the curtains around the windows and the electric lights above her head blinked. When Meg rotated her chair, she found Billie sitting on the couch, her legs crossed indolently and her dark eyes settled on her.

“Took you long enough to call,” she said.

Meg swallowed and gave herself a moment to think how she could approach this. Yes, she was the Queen of Hell, but part of that job meant recognizing when she was up against something that was much more powerful and stronger than her.

“First of all, let me apologize for my daughter,” she started, as if she was a mother justifying her child’s action in front of a very strict and very displeased teacher. “She shouldn’t have interrupted our earlier conversation like that and…”

Billie chuckled and Meg stopped talking. It was clear that Death didn’t really care for anything she had to say about the topic.

“You truly have no idea what you’re dealing with, do you?”

That was another thing Meg was really getting tired of hearing. She crossed her arms over her chest.

“No. Do you?”

Billie’s laughter became a little fainter, as if she didn’t know the answer to her own question, but she didn’t want to outright admit that. Or as if the matter was serious enough as to warrant some semblance of seriousness.

“I only know what I’ve seen,” she said. “And what I’ve seen is that when your daughter was born… even before that, when she began existing… the universe shifted ever so slightly to accommodate her.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Meg asked, but she had the impression Billie wasn’t speaking in riddles. She literally meant the universe had changed because Eris was in it. It was a dizzying notion to grapple with.

“It means she probably wasn’t supposed to exist, but she does anyway,” Billie said. “And that’s… intriguing. I hadn’t seen anything like her before and I couldn’t tell you exactly what she’s meant to do. But she’s definitely here for a reason.”

It was the same thing Eris kept saying: that she was there for a purpose, that she had a job to do, but she was consistently cagey about what that job was.

“She seemed to know you,” Meg reminded her.

“Every living creature in the world knows me, even one as powerful as her.” Billie shrugged. “I think it’s more accurate to say that she recognized me.”

“And she seemed to know… about someone else. Someone who is ‘pulling the strings’.” Meg drew air quotes in the air. “Who was she talking about?”

Billie stayed perfectly immobile for several seconds, staring at Meg, staring through Meg.

“I can’t tell you that,” she concluded.

“Why not?”

“Call it a professional secret. Since I became the new Death, I have learned many things,” Billie admitted. “And I’m not allowed to reveal a lot of them. Not even to the Queen of Hell.”

Meg bit the inside of her cheek, frustrated. This conversation wasn’t being as illuminating as she’d hoped it’d be.

“In any case, I suspect you know more about her than you think,” Billie continued.

“How?” Meg asked. “How am I supposed to know more about her than you do?”

“Because she chose you,” Billie replied. She stopped and shook her head. “Of course, you don’t remember any of it.”

Meg felt like a migraine was growing in the back of her head. This entire conversation about the universe and its expansion and whatnot was only made her even more confused about the things everyone kept insisting she knew.

“Are you talking about when I was human?” she asked. “Because I am not that person anymore. I haven’t been in millennia. I don’t even know what my real name was, but Eris says she knows it nonetheless. How is it possible that she does, that she acts as if she knew me back then and just…?”

She went quiet. By the way Billie had crooked an eyebrow to her, it was pretty obvious that she had no intention or will to answer any of all those questions.

“Again, I can only tell you what I’ve seen,” Billie said. She hesitated for a second. “But I could tell you your name. Maybe that’ll help you remember.”

“You know my name?”

“You’ve died a couple of times already, Meg,” Billie pointed out. “And you’re friends with the Winchesters.”

“I wouldn’t say we’re friends, exactly.” Meg cringed. “More like… occasional allies.”

“Regardless. I have taken to find out exactly who the people that associate with them are,” Billie explained. “They all tend to make my job a little difficult.”

Meg couldn’t really argue with that logic. She knew firsthand just how problematic the brothers could be.

“You want an advice? Just go along with whatever is it that they’re trying to do. It’ll save you lots of headaches.”

Billie chuckled again and shook her head, as if she knew exactly what Meg was talking about. And even though they were two creatures who couldn’t be more different from one another, Meg really felt like they understood each other right at that moment.

“Well?” Billie asked. “Do you want to know?”

Meg hesitated.

She had spent years fearing the answer. Azazel knew who she’d been and sometimes had taunted her with that knowledge. Meg had never asked him point blank because she was sure he would lie. But what was even worse was the possibility that he would tell her the truth.

She had done terrible things as a demon, some she sometimes wished she could regret and apologize for. She had given herself to chaos and bloodshed without further thought, with abandon, because she was certain that she deserved everything that she had gone through. She deserved to be this creature that brought nothing but pain to the world. She must have done something terrible when she was alive, something that had impressed Azazel enough to choose her and the possibility that it was something even more unforgivable than what she was already doing frankly scared her.

But what scared her even more than to find what her sin had been was to find that she had committed no sin. What if she’d sold her soul for something innocuous or stupid or selfish? Or, even worse, what if she’d sold her soul for something selfless? Maybe Azazel didn’t want her to know who she’d been because she hadn’t been a terrible person. Maybe it wasn’t fair that she’d been sent to Hell after all. Meg didn’t know how she would deal if that was the case.

However, it would be worth it. Knowing something that would change her entire self-perception would be worth it if it helped her understand what Eris was, if it helped protecting her. And just for that, she was willing to dig into her long forgotten past.

Billie kept staring at her, expectantly.

“Fine,” Meg said. “Let’s hear it.”

Billie nodded, as if she agreed with the decision Meg had made. She stood up and took two steps to get closer to her. Once she was next to Meg, she leaned down and placed her lips next to Meg’s ear.

Her breath was warm while she whispered a single word to her.

Meg blinked several times as Billie stepped away.

“That’s it?” she asked, confused. “That tells me absolutely nothing.”

Billie smiled at her, an enigmatic grin that didn’t show her teeth.

“Give it time. It’ll come back to you,” she assured her. “In the meantime, I think you should go to your family. Like I said, the universe shifted to accommodate your daughter… but that doesn’t mean that everyone is happy she’s here.”

She disappeared before Meg could ask what she meant by that.

Meg sighed deeply. She was really starting to miss the days where Azazel told her to go kill somebody and all she had to do was obey. She definitely hadn’t been made to deal with all of this kind of existential turmoil.

 

* * *

 

Castiel opened the bunker’s door for her and sighed in relief.

“I thought it would take you longer to get here,” he explained.

Before Meg could answered, he leaned over and planted a kiss on her lips. Meg closed her eyes and let the warmth of him wash over her.

“Miss me, eh, Clarence?”

“We always miss you,” Castiel said. He moved to kiss her again, but Meg put a hand on his shoulder to prevent him from doing so.

“Where’s Eris?” she asked.

Castiel stared at her with his frown deepening, but then he cleared his throat.

“Downstairs. She’s been… well, she’s been keeping herself occupied.”

Meg teleported to avoid the steps, trying to ignore the singed of Castiel’s eyes in the back of her neck. She didn’t mean to keep him at arm’s length, not really. She wanted more than anything to find an empty room in the bunker and have an hour or two alone with him.

But she felt strangely fragile, strangely worried. She couldn’t lose herself in all of her feelings for the time being, because there was simply too much that they needed to be dealing with. They could talk about whatever it was they needed to talk later.

Eris’ version of keeping herself occupied was just as manic as Meg had figured. She was sitting on one of the library chairs and she seemed to have expanded her territory entirely through the table in front of her: there were empty mugs and plastic cups, some bottles and cans of soda at her feet and two empty pizza cardboards piled up next to her. She had three leather-bound books and what seemed to be several pages of another spread in front of her, as if she was reading it all at the same time.

Jack sat by her side, also immersed in a book, perhaps because Eris invasion hadn’t exactly given him enough space to have another one. There was a half-empty bowl of peanuts in between them, but when Jack stretched his hand to get some, Eris smacked it away and glared at her while Jack let out an indignant yelp.

“How come you are still hungry?”

“I’m a growing girl. How come you still haven’t found a spell to locate the other Michael?” Eris replied, frowning. “That’s literally the only job Sam and Dad gave you.”

“Children,” Castiel interrupted them as Jack opened his mouth to argue.

Eris turned to him, frowning with irritation, but that expression melted away as soon as she noticed Meg.

“Mom!” she called out, standing up and walking towards her to hug her.

“Hey, you,” Meg said, briefly returning the hug before taking a look at the mess Eris had left on the table. “What are you doing?”

“Well, I’m trying to learn as much as I can about Michael,” Eris replied. “Not archangels. Just… Michael.”

“And how’s that going?”

“Well, there’s a lot of lore about him,” Eris said, pointing at the books and pages she had spread. “The most interesting is in God’s autobiography.”

Meg blinked a couple of times as she tried to process what she’d just heard.

“God… wrote an autobiography,” she repeated, turning to Castiel. Castiel shrugged with a sigh, as if he too was just rolling with the nonsense at this point. “And the Winchesters have it here.”

“Yeah. He has some really weird hung-ups about women,” Eris commented, lowering her voice as if she didn’t want to offend Castiel with that opinion. “But I’m learning a lot about the archangels.”

“Okay.” Meg decided she would analyze that at a later time. Maybe never. “And what’s with the binge-eating fest? Are you getting another growth-spurt?”

“Hopefully.”

“Eris,” Castiel said, in his stern tone of voice Meg was beginning to notice he only used with their daughter. “Tell your mother what you’re really trying to do.”

Eris huffed and crossed her arms over her chest, as if she felt completely ambushed by what Castiel had just said.

“I’m not trying to do anything!” she protested.

“We both know that isn’t true,” Castiel insisted. “Tell her.”

“Eris?”

Eris stepped backwards, looking down at her boots with her mouth twisted up in an irritated gesture.

“Fine. I’m trying to trigger another one,” she admitted in the end. “But I need energy to do that, so that’s why I’m eating so much.”

“Okay.” Meg frowned, not sure why Castiel thought that was such a bad thing. “Why are you in such a hurry, though? I’m sure it’ll happen in time.”

“Not soon enough to help us fight both Adam and Michael.”

It finally clicked into her head why Castiel seemed irritated about this.

“Eris, no.”

“It was my idea to get him out of the Cage. I should help putting him back in,” Eris explained, in a matter-of-fact tone that didn’t admit any replies.

Meg looked at her silently for a few seconds. She was starting to regret her desire that Eris turned out a lot more than Castiel, because damn, this was something the big damn heroes would definitely do.

“You’ve been talking to Sam too much,” she concluded. “Let us handle this.”

“But…”

“Eris, you’re powerful and I’m sure you’ll become even more so in time,” Meg admitted. “But you’re not going to do this alone, in any way or form. So don’t push yourself, do you hear me?”

Eris was clearly not happy about it, but she still nodded.

“Yes, mom.”

“And now you should go to sleep because it’s…” Meg pulled out her cellphone to check the time. “Two and a half in the morning.”

“Are you kidding me? It’s too early!” Eris protested.

“And you’ve had one Hell of a day. Literally,” Meg reminded her. “Go rest.”

Eris stomped her feet on the ground softly.

“Fine,” she said despite it. “But I’m going to keep eating in the morning.”

“You’ll get an indigestion,” Meg warned her as Eris stalked past her in the room’s directions. She stopped herself and looked at Castiel. “Can she get an indigestion?”

“It hasn’t happened yet,” Castiel said before turning towards Jack. “You should do the same, Jack.”

“But…” the Nephilim began protesting.

“Mary told you to go to sleep hours ago,” Castiel pointed out. “So you should do that.”

“I’m not tired,” Jack said, which was immediately contradicted by his barely suppressed yawn. Castiel stared at him until Jack sighed, put a marker between the pages of his book and dragged his feet towards the rooms as well.

As soon as they were both out of the library, Meg teleported down and looked down at the books and pages Eris had been reading. Just like she said, there was a lot about archangels, their nature and their weaknesses in it.

Castiel ignored the research in favor of picking up the boxes and empty cups.

“You should leave that for her to clean up in the morning,” Meg suggested.

“She’ll just miracle it away,” Castiel said tiredly, as if he’d seen it too many times. He pushed all the garbage to the other end of the table while Meg collected the loose pages into a single pile.

“Tell me something,” she started. “In the million years you’ve been alive, did you ever imagine that this is what your life would become? Cleaning up after two half-angelic brats?”

Despite the deep lines of worry in Castiel’s burrow, he chuckled.

“It definitely took some turns I wasn’t expecting,” he admitted. “Like you.”

Meg slowly raised her eyes at him.

Castiel was moving his hands over all the trash Eris had left behind and despite his seeming annoyance that she would just make it disappear, he was doing exactly the same. She knew he had lost half of his grace thanks to some dude named Metatron, but he apparently had enough power left not to need to go to the kitchen and get a garbage bag.

After it was done, he moved a chair to sit next to Meg.

“I think I might need to return to Heaven,” he announced, lowering his voice.

It was as being punched in the stomach.

“Cas, you can’t!” she exclaimed, horrified. “Last time you tried to reason with the other angels, they beat you to a bloody pulp.”

“I’m not exactly going to announce my presence there.”

“Then why the hell…?” she started, but then it all fell into place. “You were planning on taking OG Michael upstairs. You… you know where he is?”

“I have a slight suspicion,” Castiel confessed. “He was hurt, weakened by the torture and his vessel, Dean… well, he is already occupied. So maybe he’ll try to take another one and when he does…”

“We’ll have two Michaels going around. So you capture the weakened one and drop him on Heaven’s door like an unwanted litter of puppies in a sack.”

“That’s a colorful way to put it. But essentially, yes.”

Meg pinched the bridge of her nose. Eris and Castiel were both definitely trying to kill her with all these bullshit heroic shenanigans.

“I don’t like it.”

“I didn’t expect you to,” Castiel said. “I just need you to be aware of what I’m trying to do. Sam and Mary will be leaving on a hunt early in the morning and someone needs to watch over Eris and Jack.”

“So I’m on babysitter duty while you go on a secret mission with no backup.” Meg laughed, but there was no humor in it. “That’s terrific.”

“Meg…”

Meg said nothing as he stretched his hand and grabbed hers. She could have told him his name wasn’t Meg. She could have mentioned her conversation with Billie and the plans she had made while still in Hell. She had been planning on doing just that before she got to the bunker, but now… it seemed like he was all too much. He had was already overwhelmed with he had to do and she refused to put anything more worries on his shoulders. Not when he needed to focus on OG Michael.

“Fine,” she said, with a sigh. “But you have to promise me you’re going to be safe.”

He smiled softly and lifted her hand towards his lips. He left a soft kiss over her knuckles and Meg tried to ignore the way that made shiver.

“I’ll try to be,” he assured her, before he leaned over to kiss her again

 

* * *

 

Topside was noisier than he remembered it. Noisier and busier: all around him, there seemed to be people moving, talking, screaming at each other, without a care, without a stop. The cars hurrying down the streets, the smell of garbage in the alleyways, the lights and sounds coming from every single window in every single apartment around him…

Adam decided he loved it.

He spent hours wandering around the city he’d appeared in, not even really caring to find out where he was or how he was going to find his brothers. They weren’t going anywhere and he had all the time in the world. He wanted to enjoy this a little bit.

He marched into the nearest bar he found, a place where the patrons and bikers around were making a ruckus playing billiard and hitting on the waitress and nobody would notice him much. He sat down on a booth in the corner and watched silently at the humans around him. Tough guys with tattoos on their muscles, girls who laughed too loud and whose skirts were too short. He closed his eyes and took it all in, breathing in softly for what felt like the first time in centuries.

It felt so good to be back.

“What can I get you?” someone asked by his side. When he turned his head towards the waitress with a shirt that revealed a very generous cleavage, she frowned at him. “How old are you?”

Adam smirked. It was easy to forget that, to humans, he still looked like a rather inoffensive nineteen-years-old.

“Old enough to be your grandfather, sweetie.”

The waitress eyed him as if she was going to card him, which would be a shame. He didn’t have an ID (or money, since he wasn’t planning on paying for his drinks), so if she asked him to provide one, they would have a problem. And Adam really wasn’t interested in having problems. He didn’t want to have to massacre every person in that bar, simply because he was saving up all his bloodthirst for the two people who really deserved it.

In the end, he got lucky. The waitress shrugged, as if to signal that what he was doing there was none of her business.

“What can I get you?”

That was a good question. Adam had always been a goody-two-shoes in life, so he had no real experience with hard liquors. He was planning to solve this right away.

“Whiskey. Neat,” he ordered. That was what his father used to drink.

The illustrious John Winchester. Adam grimaced at the memory of him as he stared at his glass. If he had warned him and his mother of what he did, if he had bothered to care for them before the monsters came…

It was a shame that the old man had been dead for so long. Adam wouldn’t have minded sticking a knife on him as well. As things were, however, he would have to settle for Sam and Dean.

“A man after my own heart.”

Adam turned very slowly towards the voice.

The woman sitting next to him was a demon. Even if he hadn’t been able to see her, the fact that she’d simply appeared next to him on the booth would have given her away. She was using a pretty attractive blonde woman and she spoke with the slightest hint of an English accent when she the waitress approached their table again:

“Martini. Dry. Thanks, darling.”

The waitress walked away, leaving them alone. Adam took a sip from his glass. Dammit, and he’d been enjoying his night out too.

“Look, I have no intentions of going back,” he informed her. “So if that’s what you’re here for…”

“Oh, I’m not planning on taking you back to Hell,” said the other demon. “I mean… I couldn’t even if wanted to, right?”

Adam supposed he was right. Lucifer had told him that if he tortured Michael he was going to be stronger that all the rest run-of-the-mill demons and he apparently had not been lying.

“Then, what are you here for?”

She drank from her martini before offering him her hand:

“Name’s Talbot. Nice to meet you.”

Adam lowered his eyes towards his hand and then settled them back up in her face. She slowly moved it away, but her smile didn’t falter at all.

“I have a business proposal for you,” she continued, as if Adam had said anything. “I’ll go straight to the point: I think it’s time for a regime change in Hell. But the only way I’m going to achieve that is if I have someone like you by my side.”

She said it so casually, so calmly, as if that was the most casual plan in the entire world. Adam caught himself smiling at her boldness a bit.

“And why do you want to get rid of the current Queen?”

“Well, you’ve seen her, haven’t you?” Talbot tightened her lips in a gesture of disgust. “She’s weak. Like you said, she is an angel’s whore and she much rather spend her time up here with her little abomination than actually running Hell. We’ve had an incompetent King before and it was almost the downfall of us all. I can’t see that happen again.”

Adam watched her ramble without offering his opinion. It was clear this was something Talbot was very passionate about.

“When she first came into power,” she continued, “I thought she was bold, that she was strong. Clearly, I was sorely mistaken. So now it’s time we rectify this situation.”

Adam finished his whiskey and gestured at the waitress to fill his glass again.

“I don’t care for Hell,” he said, point blank. “I’m not planning on going back there. So why would I want to help you? Why would I care who rules over it?”

That seems to take Talbot aback for a second or two. She fished the olive from her martini and sucked it between her plum, full lips. Adam watched her in silence. She had chosen a very attractive vessel and he ignored the darkness swirling underneath her skin, he could almost find himself enticed by it. After all, he wagered he looked rather similar without this body he’d been sharing with Michael for far too long. It was strange to have once again his own thoughts, his own needs…

“If you don’t want to be the King, that’s fine,” Talbot concluded, shrugging her tanned shoulders. “But you should still worry about Meg. She is far too chummy with the Winchesters. I understand you have a score to settle with them, yes?”

Adam moved closer to her on the booth, so that Talbot couldn’t escape his gaze.

“Why do you care about that?” he asked, lowering his voice.

Talbot’s lips twitched into a smirk.

“I don’t like them either,” she confessed. “In my previous life I had some run-ins with them. They screwed me over too, though not as hard as they screwed you. Leaving you trapped in the Cage with two very angry archangels… I can’t imagine what that must have been like.”

Her hand closed over his knee. She was now shamelessly trying to seduce him. Adam wasn’t sure yet if he was going to allow it, but he couldn’t help a twinge of interest in what Talbot was trying to sell him.

He was on earth to enjoy himself a little as well to take revenge, yes? He could definitely afford to be distracted by a demon with no shame who was wearing a rather attractive meatsuit.

“I’ll be delighted to help you disembowel them,” Talbot continued.

“I was thinking more along the lines of impalement. I don’t want them to die fast.”

Talbot smiled as if that was the greatest idea she’d ever heard.

“Getting rid of Meg is just a necessary step to get rid of them,” she explained. “If you don’t want to rule Hell afterwards, that’s fine. But we can still scratch each other’s back, no?”

Adam stared at her silently for several seconds. The waitress came over with a second martini for her and filled up his glass without him needing to indicate her to. He picked it up and held it in front of the other demon’s eyes.

“Talbot. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

“I’ll drink to that!”

They clanked their glasses together.


	14. Chapter 14

She laid on her back on her favorite clearing in the woods. The grass was soft and warm with the rays of sun that shone down on it. The scent of the pomegranates that had burst open when they fell from the trees invaded the air, sweet and relaxing. The rumor of the waters running on the stream threatened to lull her into a soft sleep and she was half-tempted to let it.

She’d heard the warnings of the village’s elders, about what a dangerous place the woods were, but she never paid attention to them. The woods weren’t terrifying to her, they were a place full of sunlight and beauty. Why should she be afraid of what was inside it? Why should she eat its fruits, enjoy its sights? She felt safe there, warm, and she’d run inside it whenever she had the chance: after her chores were done, when her sisters and brothers were busy and no one looked for her.

And besides, she needed to enjoy this while she could. She was growing old enough and she’d noticed how the boys in the village had begun looking at her, she’d seen some of them talk to her father, perhaps asking his permission to start courting her. It was a matter of time until Father gave his permission to one of them, and then she’d be moved away from their small house at the edge of the woods. She’d be expected to take over all of the household chores and bare child after child, like her mother had.

She didn’t hate the idea of having a home of her own. She just feared that once she did, she wouldn’t have time to come to the woods and lie under the pomegranate trees.

She opened her eyes.

There was a strange sound coming from beyond the stream, something she’d never heard before. It was a melodious and soft, as if the wind was singing by blowing among the branches above her head.

She sat up, curious as to what that could be. She’d heard stories about those woods, about the old gods that had been adored in its depths. The village’s priest said that all the old gods were actually just demons in disguise and that they should fear them. Despite the fact that, officially, everyone had been baptized and converted to the new religion, she knew some people, especially the older women, still kept altars and amulets with the images of the older gods in their homes.

Perhaps that was why they feared the woods. Because there might have still been an old, forgotten god still wandering through it, still calling for devotees that were no longer there to leave offerings and sing prayers to it.

And if it was a demon, well… what a way to break the monotony.

But she doubted it. No demon could produce a sound this sweet, a song this alluring. She stood up, forgetting her sandals on the clearing as she stalked towards the stream. The grass was soft underneath her feet and she didn’t mind sinking them on the earth, though Mother might scream when she returned covered in mud.

She jumped over the stream, carelessly crossing the border between the known world, the world where she was allowed to live and breathe and grow, and the world inside the woods that was the territory of old legends and mystery, following the wind.

Following it into depths that she might not come back from…

 

* * *

 

Meg opened her eyes.

She could still smell the pomegranates, hear the rumor of the wind among the branches, as if the images of the woods refuse to leave her mind even though she was awake.

She didn’t remember falling asleep in the first place. She had made love with Castiel in one of the empty bunker’s bedrooms and then she’d closed her eyes for a second, resting her cheek against his chest, satisfied and happy.

That must have been a couple of hours ago. The clothes he’d carelessly tossed to the floor were gone and so, it seemed, was him, because there was no answer when she sat up and called:

“Clarence?”

She waited for a few seconds and then decided, as happy as she was lying there with the lingering smell of her angel, she needed to really check on Eris and Jack like he’d asked her to do.

She found them in the kitchen, having breakfast that they’d made for themselves, if the amount of bacon and eggs in their plates was anything to go by. They had taken over the table with books again and didn’t notice her when she stopped near the door, preparing to teleport herself and her chair down those very unnecessary and irritating steps.

She stopped when Eris stretched her fork and shamelessly stole a trip of bacon from Jack’s plate.

“Hey!” he protested.

“You’re not going to finish it,” Eris replied.

Jack scoffed, but he made no attempt to retaliate.

“You’re still hoping to trigger a spurt?”

“I’m hoping that if you mind your own damn business then I won’t need to have stupid conversations with you,” Eris replied, wryly. Which meant, of course, that Jack had been right in his assessment.

“It might not be enough, you know?” he commented. “The extra energy the food can provide you. Maybe it helped when you were smaller, but now you’re much bigger and…”

“And what do you suggest I do?” Eris interrupted him. “It’s not like I have an alternative source of energy to power up.”

Jack dwelled on this silently for a few seconds. Meg once again prepared to make her entry when she heard him say:

“You could tap into your own soul.”

“What, like you’ve been doing behind Sam’s back?”

That stopped Meg once again. What were they talking about? Why was Jack hiding this from the others?

“Right, I forgot. You have a demon’s soul,” Jack said. He sounded frustrated that Eris had brought up something he’d rather not think about.

“Yes, and as long as I don’t mess with it, it’ll remain an infinite source of energy within me,” Eris said. “But if I start using spells that require me to use parts of it, then I’ll be soulless. Demon soul is better than no soul.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Dude, my mom’s a demon. Don’t be racist.”

If it was a joke, Jack didn’t laugh at it.

“I’m not doing anything wrong.”

“Of course. That’s why you don’t want me to tell Sam or Mary about it. Or my dad.”

“They’re busy. They’re worried about Dean. And if you hadn’t messed it up with Adam, then they wouldn’t have to be.”

Meg clenched her fist over her chair’s armrests. Was this little brat saying what she thought he was saying…?

Before she could go inside the kitchen and interrupt their banter, Eris closed the book she was reading with a thud.

“Guess not having a soul just turns into you an asshole, huh?”

Meg barely had time to back her chair a little before Eris climbed the steps of the kitchen and caught her sight. She stopped on her tracks.

“Mom,” she said. She cleared her throat nervously. “How long have you been sitting there?”

Meg considered telling her the truth, but in the end, she just shrugged.

“Not long,” she lied.

Eris was not going to tell her what Jack was doing. If she hadn’t told Castiel or Sam yet, that meant she either wasn’t worried enough about him or considered it was none of her business. So it was better not to press the issue until she was ready to bring it up.

Besides, Meg was concerned about something else she’d heard during that conversation.

“How are you, Eris?”

“I’m fine,” she said, with a shrug. But she was glancing to the side while she did, which to Meg meant that she was outright lying to her.

“Good. That’s good,” Meg replied. “Do you want to go out for a while?”

“Out?” Eris repeated, blinking, as if she’d never even heard of the concept.

“Yes, out. You’ve been holed up in here all day with your books and if the fact you’re still wearing your dress points to something, is that you probably didn’t sleep last night like your father told you to.”

Eris looked down at her clothes, then back up to Meg. She opened her mouth, but seemed to realize at the last second that Meg was going to believe absolutely nothing that came out of it.

“So we’re going out,” Meg concluded, as if Eris had already said yes.

“To do what?”

“Anything. People-watch. Get froyo. We’ll figure something,” Meg replied. “You just need to get out of here for a while.”

“You should go,” Jack leaning against the doorway. “You’re going to eat all of the food here otherwise and Maggie just texted me that her and a bunch of the others are coming back from a hunt. There’ll be nothing left for them.”

“They can buy more,” Eris protested, but it was clear her heart wasn’t in it. She had yet to pass up on a chance to spend more time with Meg and this wasn’t going to be the exception. She still seemed hesitant, though. “Where’s dad?”

“Running some errands. We can tell him to join us later.”

She did notice the way Jack looked down when she mentioned that.

“But what about Adam?”

“I’m sure we’ll have news about him soon enough,” Meg said and extended her hand towards her daughter. “Shall we?”

Eris hesitated for a moment longer, but then the faintest smile appeared on her lips. She grabbed Meg’s hand and squeezed softly.

“Alright. Let’s go.”

Meg wasn’t sure the lake they appeared in was even in Kansas anymore, but she really didn’t care about that. It was a nice day, with families and children running around next to the water. Their leather jackets and Eris white dress seem a little out of place underneath the spring sun, but other than a few kids that immediately returned to their games, nobody really noticed them.

Eris found some stones at the edge of the lake and started throwing them in. She seemed to be trying to make them skip without using her powers, for some reason, but she seemed to be getting nowhere with that.

“Here,” Meg said, moving her chair closer to her and the edge of the lake. She picked one of the stones and showed Eris the proper way to do it. “You have to hold it like this… use your wrist, honey…”

It took a couple more attempts, but finally she got it: the rock bounced on the surface of the water twice before it disappeared. Eris let out a little exclamation of triumph.

“Where did you learn to do that?” she asked Meg, as she picked another one and prepared to try again.

“I don’t really remember,” Meg said, with a shrug. “Sometimes in between running errands for Azazel I got a day or two for myself. Usually I spent it getting booze and… meeting… new people.”

She didn’t add that this socialization usually included some very sexually charged scenarios, sometimes of the bondage and sadomasochism variety. Humans never quite scratched that itch the same way demons did, but it was fun nonetheless.

“But sometimes I did other things. I taught myself to drive, for example.”

She’d stolen some cars and taken them for joyrides, crashing them at high speeds until they had been a complete wreck. Learning how to actually drive them had been completely incidental.

“I watched the Star Wars movies when they first came out. That was fun.”

Of course, she hadn’t paid entrance for that, or for the popcorn she’d eaten while she did, but she considered that ranked really low on the list of sins she’d committed during her entire existence.

“And sometimes I came to places like this. To watch the waters or… just stay there.”

She didn’t mention those times never lasted. She wished she could have stayed quiet for longer than five minutes, but she was too restless for that. The storm that raged right underneath her veins always pushed her to find a new thrill, a new car to wreck or a new sin to try. As much as she’d tried, she couldn’t really just _stop_.

Well, that had been before she’d died. Before the Empty and before finding Castiel again. Before Eris. Now she felt like she could stay on there until kingdom come, just throwing rocks at the water and watching Eris made small triumphant gestures every time she managed a perfect skip.

“Tom was more of the quiet type. I mean, he was quiet because he was planning his next murder, but he was quiet,” Meg commented.

Eris laughed at that comment. Perhaps her demon soul gave her a little bit of a dark humor.

Which brought Meg back to the conversation she’d overheard.

“What are you and Jack up to?”

“Nothing,” Eris said, far too fast for Meg to actually believe her. She crooked an eyebrow and Eris stepped away, her entire body language turning defensive. “We just want to help.”

“Right.” Meg tilted her head at her. “And what does this ‘helping’ consist on, exactly?”

Eris sighed and stared at the lake for several seconds. Meg figured she was expecting her to forget the question.

“We don’t know yet.”

Well, that was better than outright denial, but it did nothing for Meg’s nerves to know that they were, in fact, planning something. They just hadn’t finished tuning the details.

“Eris…”

“I’m telling the truth! Jack… he doesn’t share many things with me.” She lowered her voice a little. “I don’t think he likes me very much.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because I showed up out of nowhere and Dad had to take care of me instead of him,” Eris suggested. “Sam has some books on child psychology and it says there that older brothers can get jealous of the attention the newer baby is getting.”

“You read Sam’s child psychology books?”

“I was bored and I wasn’t tall enough to reach the shelves where the real interesting things were. I had to make a little tower of chairs to get to the grimoire where the summoning spell I used to call you was.”

Meg had to laugh about that. Just the idea of Eris reading that because it was the only thing she could get her hands on was hilarious and ridiculous.

“Why didn’t you just levitate yourself up?”

Eris snapped her fingers. “I should’ve thought of that!”

Meg laughed once again. Damn, this was the kid that was supposed to be so terrifying that the universe itself had to make place to accommodate her?

“Okay, kiddo. Listen,” she started. “You have to trust that Sam and your dad got this. Well, your dad has had his fair share of screwed up plans in the past,” Meg admitted with a sigh. “But Sam will do what he has to.”

“Even if it means scarifying Dean?”

Meg couldn’t really argue with that.

“Well, you and Jack are not going to sacrifice Dean either.”

“I mean… I don’t know him, so I don’t really have any sort of attachment to him…”

“You do that, Sam will come for you and trust me, you don’t want that.”

Eris opened her mouth, then promptly closed it again. She couldn’t argue with that either.

“That seems to be the foundation upon which this world is built, isn’t it?” she asked, after a few seconds of reflection. “Sam and Dean Winchester and what they’d do for each other.”

“I don’t know if the entire foundation of it. That seems a bit excessive.” Meg stopped and reflected on that for a moment. “But those guys definitely keep things interesting around here.”

“I wonder if…” Eris started, but she interrupted herself and tilted her head to the side.

Meg watched her closely.

“Eris?”

“Dad found Michael,” she said, an urgency picking up in her voice. “This world’s Michael, the one I let out.”

Meg felt her stomach twist up in a nervous knot. She didn’t even bother asking how she knew.

“Where?”

Instead of answering, Eris put a hand on her shoulder.

The lake disappeared. Meg had to look around for a moment to figure out where they were, and even then, she couldn’t really figure it out.

All she knew is that they were standing in a hospital room. A black-skinned man in sat on a bed, completely immobile, with his gaze lost in the view outside his barred window: just a patch of sky, where dark clouds were slowly gathering. Castiel stood a few steps behind him, but turned towards them as soon as he saw them appear.

“Hello, girls,” he greeted them.

Eris looked at him, then at Michael and finally at Meg.

“You said he was running errands.”

“I never said which kind of errands,” Meg quipped.

“He came after Michael alone?!” Eris said, shaking her head. “That could have been dangerous!”

“Could you please be quiet?” the man on the bed said. His voice was barely a whisper, but it was almost as if his words boomed inside Meg’s mind. “There was always so much noise in the Cage. It’s quiet here. I like the quiet.”

Eris huffed. Meg understood why she got angry over them not mentioning this to her. She too had been more than a little worried about Castiel’s plan. But as she looked at the man that she knew now, undoubtedly, was Michael, she could feel nothing except relief that this hadn’t ended with Castiel beaten to a bloody pulp once more.

“How did you find him?” Meg wanted to know, lowering her voice.

“Years ago, one of the possible vessels for Lucifer was a man named Jake Talley,” Castiel explained. “He had an older brother. I figured he’d be a possible vessel for Michael, so I set out to find him. He’d checked-in here yesterday with religious hallucinations.”

“And?” Eris asked.

Castiel sighed.

“I don’t know,” he confessed. “He doesn’t seem like… he wants to fight or…”

“I’ve already fought so much, brother,” Michael said, as if they had addressed him directly. “I failed to fight Lucifer. I failed to contain Adam. Now I’ve come back into this world and I find that most of my brothers and sisters are dead. Lucifer is dead and nothing has changed. Our father is still absent. All the sacrifices I have made… they have been for nothing. I am tired.”

There was no anger in his voice. In fact, there was no emotion in his voice at all. It sounded flat, like they had shot him full of tranquilizers. Meg entertained herself for a second or two thinking how much tranquilizer would be needed to affect an archangel before realizing this scene was familiar. She had been in a hospital room with a broken angel before.

Except she wasn’t sure there was fixing him after so many centuries of torture.

“Michael,” Castiel said, taking a step around the bed so he’d be in the archangel’s line of sight. “But what about Heaven?”

Michael turned his gaze towards Castiel, frowning as if he’d never heard that word before in his life.

“What about it?”

“Are you really going to let the other one, that… impostor take over it?”

“Are you really looking to me to be your leader again, Castiel? As I remember it, you were never too fond of following orders and I don’t see why you would start now. Tell me the truth. Why do you care if I am here or in Heaven?”

Castiel swallowed and glanced at Meg and Eris before he answered:

“I was hoping that having you back would convince what’s left of Heaven to stop backing the other Michael,” he confessed. “I was hoping once they withdrew their support of him, my family and I would have a chance to confront him. Michael, I need to protect them.”

“That’s very noble of you.”

There was nothing in his tone that indicated he really thought it. He turned his attention back to the window, as if that line of conversation had lost all interest to him.

“Maybe I am the impostor,” he reflected. “After all, _he_ succeeded on what I was supposed to do. Perhaps it’s best to let him decide what Heaven’s fate should be.”

“He will literally kill all of humanity, though!” Eris protested.

Michael looked at her and blinked very slowly, as if he was trying to make sure that whatever he saw on her was right. He recovered after a few seconds, as if not even Eris was enough to rise a reaction out of him.

“Would that be so bad?”

“Look, I haven’t been here too long,” Eris admitted. “But what I’ve seen… what my father has taught me… it’s shown me that humanity is worth saving. Didn’t your father teach you to love humanity as well?”

“No. He never taught me that,” Michael replied. “He just ordered us to. Lucifer questioned his orders. And my father asked me to lock him away for it and told me I would kill him some day. You don’t understand how painful that was.”

“Well, no, not really,” Eris admitted. “I’m an only child.”

Meg had a coughing fit. Just because she knew Castiel would frown even deeper if she laughed.

“So,” she cleared her throat. “What are you gonna do now? Just sit here and watch the sky?” Michael offered no answer, so Meg continued: “You realize this is just a different cage, right?”

“Perhaps. But it’s a cage _I_ have chosen,” the archangel replied. “To be safe. To have some peace. I think I deserve that. Heaven, earth… they mean nothing to me. So whatever answer for your troubles you’re looking for, Castiel, you won’t find it in me.”

He went quite. Castiel stared at them for a second before he headed towards the door, which he closed as soon as they were all out.

“I didn’t expect him to…” he started, but his shook his head without finishing his sentence. “Can you, perhaps, help me take him back to Heaven?” he asked Eris. “Is it within your power?”

Eris frowned.

“No. And if it was, I wouldn’t. He clearly doesn’t want to leave.”

Castiel opened his mouth, then closed it again, taken aback by her response.

Meg noticed a nurse that had slowed down her pace when walking past them and had to wonder how much she’d heard of their conversation. That could be a problem.

“Cas, what would the other angels think if they saw their fearless leader like this?” Meg pointed out. “Because I think they would stick with the guy that hasn’t been completely hollowed out by whatever Lucifer and Adam did to him.”

Castiel sighed and his entire body seem to deflate slightly as he did.

“You’re right, of course,” he admitted. “But I can’t just leave him here. If the other Michael knew…”

“But he doesn’t. We’re the only ones who know,” Meg said.

“We could come check out on him now and then?” Eris suggested. “Like… visit him once a week? See how he’s doing?”

“Yes, I suppose we should monitor him closely,” Castiel mumbled. “He could change his mind about not taking action against humanity.”

Eris frowned a little deeper. It was clear she hadn’t meant it like that.

The same nurse as before walked past them in the opposite direction and stopped in front of a patient’s door, clearly glancing in their direction now. She was human, as far as Meg could tell, but it was better not to risk it.

“Alright, well… I guess we’ve done all we could do here,” Meg said, before the disagreement between Eris and Cas could crystalize. Not that she thought it shouldn’t. It just maybe it shouldn’t on a hospital hall with an eavesdropping nurse. “We should go before someone discovers what we came to do.”

Eris stretched her hand to put it on her shoulder, but Meg gently grabbed her by the wrist to stop her.

“Let’s just take the elevator.”

The ride down was silent and more than a little uncomfortable. Meg decided she liked hospitals after all: they seemed to be the only damn places in the world where she could find a decent ramp. As soon as they stepped outside, though, they were met with a cold gust of wind that ruffled Meg’s hair and made Castiel’s coat flap behind him. Eris tugged at her own jacket as she raised her eyes towards the sky.

“There’s a storm coming,” she whispered.


	15. Chapter 15

Adam was tired of waiting.

“You said he’d be here half an hour ago,” he said, glaring at Talbot.

The crossroads demon was very uncomfortable with the turn the situation was taking. She had been so certain that she could set up an encounter, she’d even risked herself getting smitten by being the one who talked to the angels. But now that they’d been waiting for a while, her confidence seemed to be waning a little.

“I’m sure he’ll be here at any moment,” she said.

Adam scoffed and walked away from her. The dry grass crunched underneath his feet and he was barely containing the impulse to punch and kick at the tombstones around him. A cemetery. He didn’t know if it had been Talbot or the angels’ idea, but either way, he didn’t like it. He’d died in a cemetery. Twice. He’d rather not think about it.

And it was an ugly cemetery on top of it. The tombstones were decaying, with barely legible letters and dates on them, and none of them seemed to have received a single flower in years. The entire place was like an ode to human mortality: they had settled those bodies to rest there, but then they’d been forgotten and now they were rotten anonymously in those unkempt grounds.

He turned to make a comment about this to Talbot (or perhaps to tell her they should leave, as their appointment was obviously not showing up) when a loud flutter of wings interrupted the quiet of the night.

The cemetery was dark, but Adam could see the man that walked towards them through the shadows. As soon as his eyes distinguished his face, he burst into laughter he couldn’t control.

“What’s so funny?” Michael asked, in a gruff voice that sounded a lot, but not quite the same, as that of Dean Winchester.

“Nothing,” Adam replied, though he was still chuckling a little. “I came topside to kill the man you’re possessing, but now I think it’s better to just let you have him. Let him rot inside his own mind while you use his hands to murder everything and everyone he’s ever loved. He deserves that and more.”

The archangel narrowed his eyes at him.

“Who are you? And why shouldn’t I smite you and your friend right now? You have some nerve, telling my soldiers you needed to speak to me urgently…”

“Who am I it’s a bit of a long story,” Adam said, with a shrug. “But I really think we can help each other out. See, we both want the same thing: Sam Winchester. Dead.”

Michael’s face (Dean’s face) remained expressionless, but Adam thought he saw the tiniest bit of interest flash through his eyes.

“Is that so?”

Adam wasn’t an idiot. He knew Michael would try and kill him the moment their allegiance was no longer useful to him, but being locked away for centuries with another Michael that couldn’t really be that different from this one, the knowledge that he’d already managed to break the archangel once, gave him enough confidence to negotiate with him.

“I bet you’ve wanted him dead from the moment you took over that meatsuit,” Adam continued. “Because he is the only thing standing between you and complete dominion over this earth. I bet every time you even think about killing him, Dean starts throwing a tantrum in the back of your head.”

Michael raised his chin. He didn’t say anything, but Adam didn’t need him to know he was right.

“If someone can give Dean the strength to kick you out, that’s Sam,” he continued. “So you need to eliminate him, but you can’t do it yourself, can you?”

Michael stared at him in silence for a few seconds, his pose perfectly still: the image of the perfect soldier. He prided himself in it. He liked to think of himself as an honorable angel, someone who would keep his end of the bargain and maybe he would… for a while. Adam knew him well enough to know it was better to betray him before he had a chance to betray them.

But that would all come afterwards.

Michael finally remembered to move and speak.

“And you have a proposal to make, I take it.”

“Of course.” Adam grinned. “We help you kill Sam Winchester and then you help us kill the Queen of Hell. I’d do it myself, but you see, she has this brat…”

“I am aware of the girl,” Michael interrupted him. “She needs to be dealt with too.”

“You can deal with her anyway you want. I don’t care,” Adam said, quickly. “I only want her mother dead.”

“And how exactly do you plan on killing Sam Winchester? That’s what I want to know.”

“I have my methods,” Adam replied. “We kill him, then you kill the Queen of Hell and then… I don’t know, we duke it out for the earth? Split the difference, fifty-fifty?”

Michael’s lips quivered ever so slightly, as if he found Adam’s joke funny but wasn’t willing to admit it.

Of course, Adam knew that it wouldn’t be so easy. Michael was never going to let them have what he considered his, but Adam was willing to fight him for it. Now that he’d returned to it, he found he liked the earth and he wasn’t ready to hand it over to some destructive archangel with daddy issues. If some humans got caught in the crossfire, well, there was seven billion of them. They could stand to lose some.

But all of that they could settle afterwards.

“Deal,” Michael accepted.

He stepped forwards and extended his hand. Adam confidently shook it, applying just the slightest of pressure as he looked straight into Michael’s eyes. Dean’s eyes. They looked a lot dimmer now that the archangel was in charge.

“Isn’t it nice when it all works out?” Talbot asked, smiling.

It was. The only pity, Adam thought, was that Sam and Dean wouldn’t get to watch each other die. Oh, well. They could always snatch some pictures as souvenirs.

 

* * *

 

 

The ambient at their table was much different than it had been just days before, when they’d walked around a small town and bought books for Eris. Then they had laughed, and let themselves act like a family, and forgotten about the problems surrounding them for an hour or two.

Now, they were at a small diner, sitting in somber silence in front of each other, while the soft rain tapped against the window by their side. They could have flown back to the bunker, or anywhere else where it was dry and warm and they wouldn’t have to pretend to be humans, but Eris had insisted she was hungry and Castiel was so lost in thought it had been up to Meg to protest… and she honestly hadn’t found it in herself to do so.

Eris had eaten three burgers already, Meg had downed four bottles of beer and was working on the fifth and Castiel had mostly sat there in front of them, with his gaze lost in the distance like he too didn’t know what the hell he was supposed to say.

They were all thinking about Michael.

Meg didn’t have to read anyone’s mind to figure that out. It was, simply, the only thing that made sense for them to be thinking about: Michael, and if leaving in the hospital had been the right decision. After another minute of thick silence, Meg put down her bottle noisily enough to get Eris and Castiel to startle.

“There was nothing else we could have done,” she said. “He didn’t want to leave. Do I need to remind you that no one can really make archangels do anything they don’t want to do?”

“Perhaps,” Castiel agreed. “It still didn’t feel right to just leave him there alone. The other angels could find him and the humans he’d be putting in risk if someone upsets him…”

“I’ll put a detail on him,” Meg suggested. “Yes, I’ll make sure none of the nurses are possessed. I’ll tell the demon to find a freshly-vacated corpse,” she added quickly when Castiel frowned at her. “That way we’ll have someone to watch over him and make sure that he doesn’t suddenly want to destroy everything around him.”

“Do you think he’ll accept a demon as his caretaker?”

“You did,” Meg pointed out with a smirk. She stretched her hand over the table and grabbed Castiel’s. She wasn’t too sure about this whole “gestures of affection” business, but she might as well give it a try to calm down the pouting angel. “We’ll figure it out, Clarence.”

“I hope so,” Castiel said. “I fear this isn’t going to be as simple as it looks.”

“Of course it won’t be,” Eris agreed. “But Michael was right. He deserves to have some peace after…” Her voice trailed off. She frowned, as if she was suddenly very confused by what she was thinking. Meg watched her closely while she struggled to come up with the words. “I… I pity him,” Eris concluded.

She still looked a little confused, as if that wasn’t quite the right word she wanted to say, but it still was the closest one.

“How come?”

“He wanted to please his father, even when his orders broke his heart,” Eris explained. “Even when he didn’t understand why, he believed God always knew better. He was given a purpose… and he wasn’t able to fulfill it.”

Castiel’s eyes opened wide. He opened his mouth and closed it again, as if he couldn’t come up with an answer to what Eris was saying. Meg sighed and gestured for the waitress to get her another beer. It was going to be one of _those_ conversations.

“Look, I’m not saying you shouldn’t pity the guy,” she started, even though, deep down, she thought that was exactly what Eris should do. “But I think maybe you’re feeling this because you’re afraid the same thing will happen to you. You haven’t stopped yapping about your purpose or your mission or whatever since you could talk.”

Eris gasped softly.

“You think I _yap_?”

It was amazing that one of the most powerful beings to ever walk the earth could still have some teenage insecurities.

“No, honey, you have a very beautiful voice,” Meg said. “Except when you scream.”

Eris stared at her for a second and then nodded, as if she was accepting the criticism.

“But what I’m trying to tell is that whatever this purpose you think you have is; it doesn’t matter if you can’t fulfill it.”

Eris mismatched eyes grew wide and she threw herself back against the chair’s backrest. It was almost as if Meg had just suggested she should eat a puppy.

“And what am I supposed to do then?” she asked, a note of panic growing in her voice.

“Find another one,” Meg said, with a little shrug. “Believe me, I understand. A sense of purpose, a mission, a cause… whatever you want to call it, it can order your life, the way it ordered Michael’s life. But if a mission fails, then you have to keep grinding and find a different one. Look at your father, for example.”

“What?” Castiel mumbled. It seemed like he had completely missed out half of the conversation or, at the very least, was more than a little shocked about what Meg was saying.

Meg was too. She’d never thought her personal philosophy could come off as some wisdom she could impart to anyone, let alone her own daughter.

“After turning his back on Heaven, he found a new cause in helping his friends. It’s a stupid cause, because his friends are idiots and keep getting him in trouble…”

“Seriously, Meg?” Castiel asked, visibly irritated.

It didn’t matter, because Eris laughed for the first time since they’d left the hospital. It wasn’t a full on laugh, just a soft chuckle, but it was something.

“… but it’s a cause he believes in,” Meg concluded. “And we’re not human, Eris. We’re here for the long haul. So the sooner you get used to the idea that causes may sometimes fall apart, the sooner you’ll learn to roll with the punches and the less you’ll suffer.”

Eris said nothing. For a few seconds, she systematically tore apart the empty hamburger wrappers in front of her, like she needed something to do with her hands while she reflected on what Meg had told her.

“Did you learn how to do that?” she asked in the end.

“It took me some centuries,” Meg admitted. “But I did. And I’m happy with the cause I have right now.”

“Ruling Hell?”

Meg bit the inside of her cheek. If she’d asked that question just a few years ago, she would have certainly lied about it. Now, though… she supposed it was important for her to learn the truth. Even if the truth would wound Meg’s pride.

“You,” she said, simply.

Eris opened her mouth and closed it again. It was remarkably how much she looked like Castiel when she was baffled. And also, how cute Castiel was when he smiled.

“Your mother is very wise, Eris. You should listen to her.”

“Next I’m going to teach you how to use your womanly wiles to distract and take advantage of your enemies,” Meg said, because the conversation was turning too serious for her liking.

“Meg!” Castiel shouted, scandalized.

“Why would I need to do that? I could just snap my fingers and vaporize them,” Eris said.

And really there was no arguing with that logic, so Meg simply laughed at Castiel’s patent exasperation.

“You really just…” he started protesting.

“Hold that thought,” Meg said, as her phone rang inside of her jacket. She crooked an eyebrow when she saw the name on her screen. “I have to take this.” She pressed it against her ear. “Hello?”

“… you’re nothing but a couple of sixpenny demons,” Rowena’s voice came out. It distracted Meg for a second, but that wasn’t who she was expecting to hear. “And I’m friends with the Queen of Hell, so you might as well turn back now…”

“Who is it?” Castiel asked.

Instead of answering, Meg placed the phone down on the table and put it on speaker. It would be easier than having to explain anything.

“Well, you should think again,” a male voice came in. “We’re not exactly beholden to the so-called queen, so we don’t care what you tell her.”

“That’s Adam!” Eris said, her expression transforming into a grimace of sudden fear.

“And it was actually her who sold you out!” Adam said, his voice drowning out in a cruel giggle. “She told us you and Sam Winchester have an… affinity.”

Rowena answered nothing to this, but Adam was clearly not down with being patient.

A high-pitched, pained scream that could only have come from the witch echoed through the diner.

“Eris!” Castiel exclaimed, but Eris was already putting a hand on each of their arms and flying them out of there.

Meg blinked and found herself in an alley somewhere, but she barely had time to take in her surroundings before the phone demanded her attention again.

“… now, I’m gonna ask nicely one more time.”

“Oh, that was you asking nicely?” Rowena said, her voice filled to the brim with anger and sarcasm.

“Yes. And trust me, you’re going to miss it,” Adam replied. “So I suggest, for your sake, that you pick up the phone and get Sam Winchester on the line…”

The phone call ended abruptly. Meg looked up at Castiel and Eris, to see her own concern reflected back at her. For a second, none of them said a word as the drizzle fell on their heads.

“It’s a trap,” Castiel said through gritted teeth and took out his own cellphone.

“We have to help Rowena!” Eris said.

Meg was not about to argue this, of course, but she still had to raise a concern.

“Adam is stronger than any demon on my payroll, stronger than any of us,” she said, shaking her head. “We have to be smart about this. We need weapons.”

“Sam’s not picking up,” Castiel said, concern creeping up in his blue eyes.

“Eris, take us to the bunker,” Meg instructed her. “We’re going to need holy oil, angel blades, maybe the damn Spear.”

“But Rowena…”

“She’s strong. She can hold on a little longer,” Meg assured her. “Now, let’s go.”

Eris bit her lower lip, as if she wanted to disregard Meg’s warnings and simply charge into battle.

“Eris,” Castiel intervened, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Your mother is right. We might not be able to kill Adam, but we need to have a way to capture him.”

She looked back at her father for a second and nodded. She grabbed the hand Meg was extending to her and with a flutter of wings, she flew them all out of there.

The second they landed in front of the bunker’s door, Meg felt a punch in the gut, the overwhelming realization that something was wrong there as well. The door was wide open, practically hanging from its hinges, and it looked charred, like something had blown it to pieces. There were noises coming from the inside: furniture breaking, screams of pain.

Castiel grew pale and it looked like Eris was about to vomit. Meg’s first impulse was to grab them both and pull them away from that place, because whatever it was that had been able to walk into the most secure supernatural place in the world was no match for them. But of course, Castiel already had his angel blade in hand and he and Eris were charging ahead, so Meg had no choice but to follow her dumbass family into an unknown danger.

She teleporte1d directly inside to avoid the damn stairs, her own angel blade in her hand. The air smell thin, charged, like right before a storm. Her wheels stopped turning and when she looked down, she realized they had bumped against a body, laying down on the floor, intact except for the black, burning craters where his eyes had once been.

Eris gasped behind her, her eyes fixed on the library in front of them. Meg looked up to find out there were at least three other hunters spread around, fallen on the floor, over the table or resting against the knocked down shelves. All of them had their eyes burned out.

There had definitely been a fight there, but no one could have blamed those little hunters for losing it.

Angels.

Or even worse, Michael.

Meg was once again going to suggest that they should flee before anyone realized they were there (there was nothing they could do for them after all, they were already dead) but then Castiel muttered:

“Jack.”

And well, dammit, she supposed it was “find the damn Nephilim” time.

“Jack!” Eris screamed out.

A rattling came from the kitchen, so Meg turned her chair towards that place as Eris and Castiel ran ahead of her.

But the second they stopped looking at her, Meg froze and considered her options.

They weren’t going to be able to harm Michael, no matter how strong Eris was. He had already killed all those people and she hoped to hell she was wrong, but she was certain that Rowena must have made the call right now, so Sam and Mary were probably on their way to rescue her. Adam would kill them both without a second of hesitation.

So maybe they wouldn’t even be there to blame Meg for what she was about to do. She had to protect Eris and Castiel, first and foremost.

If she was a Winchester, where would she keep the only weapon capable of stopping an archangel?

The first answer she thought of was the damn Impala’s trunk, which was far away and guarded against demons anyway.

No, Sam was smarter than that. He wouldn’t take the weapon out unless he was ready to charge into battle and the spear was only reserved to fight against Michael. So the only real possibility was that it was still in the bunker, but he wouldn’t just leave it lying around or hide it away with all the rest of the valuable occult artifacts.

She blasted Sam’s door open with a wave of telekinetic energy. He would want to keep the spear close, away from curious eyes and ears that could reveal its existence to the enemy should they be captured or tortured. She stretched her hand and just as he thought, the spear, still wrapped up in its gauze, flew from under the bed and directly into her expecting palm. Resolution grew inside her as she undid its leather binds and gripped her fingers tight around the handle.

Yes, they would all be mad at her if they survived, but maybe, in time, they’d come to see it had been necessary.

Even Dean would understand his sacrifice was necessary. He would hate that it was her who killed him. But he would understand there was no other way.

The scene in the kitchen when she parked next to the door was worse than she expected. The table was broken down, the dishes and mugs were broken down on the floor. There was another human corpse against the wall with burnt eyes that Meg recognized: it was Maggie, the girl that had brought the pregnancy test for her.

Meg would’ve felt sorry for her, if it hadn’t been because in the two seconds she’d taken her eyes off them, her family had managed to get in as much trouble as it was possible.

Jack was on the floor next to the dead girl, holding his side as blood gushed among his fingers. Michael towered over him, one hand extended to the side. Meg had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep calm when she saw what he was doing with it: he had Eris pinned against the wall, her feet hanging several inches above the floor. She struggled and tried to escape it, but the archangel was seemingly pushing against her with all his power, because all she could managed was some short, spastic movements and a few gasps for air while her face contorted in barely contained anger.

Meg couldn’t see Castiel from that angle, but she heard his voice.

“Please, don’t. Michael, not her…”

She had never heard him so broken up, so fearful. She tried to ignore the way her hands trembled and her fury raged inside of her mind, reflecting his, to focus on what Michael was saying.

“The Nephilim, I will spare. We’re family, after all.”

“We’re not… we’re not family,” Jack said, through pained pants.

“Not literally, no,” Michael conceded. “But we’re kin, Jack. In a matter of power, we’re equal. You’ll come to see it. Her, on the other hand…” He turned his attention towards Eris. “She is corrupted. She is a mockery of what we are. I still don’t understand how she even exists, but it doesn’t matter. It’s my duty to cleanse the earth of her.”

Eris made another sound. It started slow and soft, but then grew in volume until Meg realized what it was. A cackle. A laughter so loud and downright amused that Meg had to wonder for a moment if she’d lost her mind.

Michael wondered the same thing, because he tilted his head at her. Meg could only make out his profile, but she was sure he must have been frowning.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, with a growled that was a lot like, but not exactly, Dean’s.

“You… you fear me,” Eris said.

Michael’s varied his position ever so slightly, turning completely towards her now. He raised his chin, his jaw clenched tight. Meg evaluated the position. If she moved fast enough, perhaps she could guide the Spear to his side, or to his neck…

“You haven’t seen anything like me before,” Eris continued saying. Her lips curved on an almost manic grin. “You have no idea what I can do or what my presence on this earth means, and you’re scared because you can’t control me. You think you can control _him_.” She moved her head a little towards Jack. “That’s why you’re offering him to come with you. But you’ve made the wrong choice. I have enough angel in me that I would’ve given you mercy.”

Michael’s nostrils flared up in rage.

“Shut up, abomination…!”

He lifted up his hands.

Meg moved quick: she moved her chair past the steps, holding the spear up, the point aimed directly at Michael. The archangel caught sight of her and moved at the last second… not fast enough to prevent the spear from slashing at his clothes. It left a long, gaping wound across his abdomen. Castiel jumped out from somewhere to the left, his angel blade held high and pointing directly at him. Michael intercepted the hit with his own weapon, letting Eris drop to the ground at the same time.

Her daughter wasted no time: she leapt to her feet and extended her hand, blasting all her energy towards Michael. Castiel barely had time to step back before the archangel flew across the kitchen and hit hard against the opposite wall, the crack of bones and his pained scream echoing in the room.

Meg lifted up the spear, held it up above her shoulder…

_… she held it up above her shoulder and threw it at the soldier with that had been dragging the neighbor’s girl by the hair. It didn’t hurt him, but it unbalanced him enough that he let go._

_“You heathen… WHORE!” he screamed in rage._

_She only turned around and ran away as fast as her feet could carry her. The town around her was burning down, the air was hot and thick with ashes. It would burn to the ground and so would the woods, but she had no fear as headed there, with the soldiers’ heavy footsteps behind her. She’d rather die in the flames than surrender what the trees hid…_

“NO!”

Meg blinked, but the spear had already left her hand, to bury itself… deep in the bricks where Michael had been a second before. The archangel was back on his feet, heading fast towards the kitchen’s door.

Castiel tried to follow him, but Eris scream came quick:

“Dad, no!”

He halted abruptly and turned to her just like Meg did. Eris was knelt next to Jack, with a hand on his shoulders and worry in her mismatched eyes.

“Let him go. We’ll see him again,” she said.

Then she turned her attention towards Jack, who looked pale and had his lips tightened, as if he was struggling not to vomit. Eris stretched an open palm over the wound in his stomach. White light poured from her fingertips. Jack cringed, but his expression relaxed as Eris worked. Finally, when he moved his fingers again, his clothes remained blood-soaked, but he was healed.

He tried stumbling to his feet, but Cas had to catch his arm and help him stand. The eyes of the Nephilim almost burned when he lifted them up at Meg.

“You were going to kill him!”

Meg opened her mouth to defend herself, but she didn’t need to. Eris spoke faster:

“It doesn’t matter! This was all a distraction.”

“He killed all of the…” Jack stopped and almost choked as he shook his head. He pointed at Maggie’s body on the floor. “You call that a distraction?!”

“Yes. Because none of them were who he was after,” Eris said.

“Sam,” Castiel muttered. He grabbed the spear by the handle and pulled it out of the wall. “We have to go to him. Now!”


	16. Chapter 16

Rowena was coming to slowly. She wished she wasn’t.

She couldn’t be sure, but she suspected that brute of a demon had broken at least a couple of ribs when he was torturing her. She couldn’t even try to use her magic to relieve some of the pain, because they had tied her up to one of her chairs with bracelets of pure iron.

They had come prepared for all of her tricks and then the demon called Adam had taken his time torturing her, cutting her and beating her and threatening to do even worse things to her if she didn’t call Sam to come over right about now.

Rowena had tried every trick up her sleeve. She had first pretended she didn’t know who he was talking about, but of course, Sam Winchester was famous enough that it was a weak attempt. Instead, she started insisting that they had the wrong witch, but Adam had only laughed in her face, a cruel, terribly cold sound.

“Nice try,” he’d chuckled. “But my friend here knows it’s you, Rowena.”

The other demon had hanged back and watched the torture and interrogation go down with a blank expression. In between the punches that Adam threw at her face, Rowena had time enough to focus on her and recognized her.

“Talbot!” she’d exclaimed. “What are you doing? Meg is never going to forgive you…”

“You think I care what that fake queen will think of me?” Talbot had replied, proudly lifting up her chin. “By the time we’re done with her, she’ll be the one begging _our_ forgiveness.”

So she was a traitor. Figures. Demons weren’t exactly known for their loyalty and of course they would run to the biggest, meanest bully in time, which in that case, was Adam.

Rowena had resisted. She’d resisted when Adam starting pulling fingertips and breaking fingers. She’d resisted when he’d began cutting and beating her. She’d resisted up until the point Adam had produced a fire poker and started heating it up on the kitchen’s stove. Rowena had tried to look away, but Talbot had held her up in place so she would see what was coming.

“Always wondered if something like this would leave a mark,” Adam had said. His clear eyes had a menacing shine upon them. “Where should we start?” he’d wondered as he picked up the hot red iron. He waved it in front of Rowena’s legs and arms as he chanted tauntingly: “Eenie, meenie, miney…”

“One lousy phone call,” Talbot had said. It sounded almost like she was begging Rowena to just give in. “That’s all we ask of you.”

Rowena had said nothing, not because she didn’t have anything to say, but because fear had closed up her throat.

“… moe,” Adam had finished, holding the poke up, pointing it straight at Rowena’s face. He’d began moving it closer and closer, until Rowena could almost feel the heat over her heat, she could almost smell the burned flesh and the smoke..

“Wait,” she’d muttered. “Wait. I’ll… I’ll make. I’ll make the call.”

A smile had extended through Adam’s face.

“Awesome!” he’d said, and damn it, how could he look and sound so young when Rowena already knew what he was capable off? He’d placed the poke back over the stove and grabbed Rowena’s cellphone. “Make it sound like a friendly call. Or a booty call, I don’t know. Just get him to come here.”

They’d first had to wait until Rowena stopped crying and her voice stopped breaking. She knew it’d exasperated them, but at least they were smart enough not to start beating her again while she did.

In reality, she’d been trying to get herself sometime to remember. What was the stupid word that Sam had told her for situations like these…?

“Very well,” Rowena had muttered, finally. “I think I’m… I think I’m ready.”

They hadn’t untied her; they weren’t that stupid. Instead, Talbot manipulated her cellphone and put it on speaker. It only rang two times before Sam had picked up.

“Rowena? Is everything okay?”

“Why do you think something must be wrong for me to call you, Samuel?” Rowena had replied. She hadn’t needed to fake the laughter at the irony of the situation while she said that. “No, I am simply call you to… ask how you’ve been.”

Adam had made a gesture of impatience, but Talbot shook her head. At least she’d understood they needed to let Rowena handle this how she best saw fit.

“Uh… I’ve been fine, thank you,” Sam had replied. There was no way to hide the confusion in his voice. “I just finished a hunt with my mother.”

“Oh, how was that?”

“Fine? It was just some vampires. We cleaned out the nest and now we’re leaving.”

“Must have been very stressful,” Rowena had said, forcing her tone to sound as cheerful as she could. “But hey, if you’re near Chicago you could drop dear old mamsie somewhere and come visit me.”

There had been a few seconds of silence on the other end of the line. Rowena’s pulse had quickened. If she’d been a religious woman, she would’ve prayed that Sam didn’t give away that this wasn’t usual for them.

“Umh… what?” he’d asked after a few seconds.

“Yes.” Rowena had forced out a chuckle. “We could have some fun together. You know… go to funky town, if you catch my draft?”

“Oh.” Sam had said, and then a little louder. “ _Oh_.”

“I think it’s been a long time coming, hasn’t it?” Rowena had added. “So, hurry up?”

“Yeah. Yes, of course.” Sam had cleared his throat. “I’ll be there in a couple of hours.”

“I can hardly wait. Buh-bye, Samuel.”

Talbot had ended the call and Adam had stood up from the stall he’d been sitting in.

“What was that?” he’d asked.

“You said to make it sound like a booty call,” Rowena had replied with a shrug. “Now, if that is all you require from me…”

Adam’s laughter was one of the creepiest things Rowena had heard in her entire life. She wasn’t sure she could scrape it from her brain afterwards, no matter how much time it passed after this. If there was an after this.

“Oh, little witch,” he’d said while he sauntered towards her. Rowena noticed the fire poke in his hand and shrunk away, as much as the chair she was tied to allowed her. “I think there’s still more fun to be had for us.”

He’d lifted the fire poke before stabbing down at Rowena’s leg. The pain seared through her and Rowena wasn’t sure if she’d screamed or not. She just knew that darkness had overtaken her and she’d surrendered herself to it without much fight.

She didn’t know how long she was out, but Sam must have not got there yet, because she could see Adam in her living room, pacing around with impatience.

“He said a couple of hours!” he exclaimed. He still had the poke in his hand and he twirled and toyed with it, like a bored child who didn’t quite know what to do with himself.

“Calm down,” Talbot said. She was sitting in her best arm chair and Rowena noticed that she’d helped herself to her liquor cabinet, if what she had in her hand was anything to go by. “He’ll be here. He cares for the witch. They all do.”

“Well, I don’t want them all here. I don’t care for any of them. Just Sam.” Adam stopped his pacing and fixed his gaze in a vase Rowena had placed next to the window. He lifted the poke and smashed it, the pieces falling to the floor with a din.

“You should care,” Talbot replied. “Meg, Castiel, their brat… Michael considers them dangerous for a reason.”

Adam clicked his tongue and kicked the shards at his feet.

“Michael is an idiot,” he said.

“Sure thing,” Talbot said and was there a hint of sarcasm in her voice? “In any case, we should talk about what we’re going to do about him when this is all over.”

Adam moved towards one of Rowena’s paintings. She cringed when she figured what he was about to do: he lifted the poke and broke the glass again. The frame fell off the wall and Adam continued hitting it, over and over. There was such anger emanating from him, such ferocity, but no form or finesse. He didn’t have the finesse or the sophisticated cruelty of other demons, like Talbot or Crowley or Meg herself. He was simply an attack dog that had been let off his leash.

And this was the guy Talbot was planning on putting on the throne? He wasn’t going to last a second, especially considering… what was that they were saying about Michael?

“I don’t know what you mean,” Adam groaned, stepping unto the broken glass as if he wanted to make sure it was crushed completely.

“I mean that after we finish our part of the agreement, he’s going to come after us,” Talbot replied. “So what are we going to about that?”

Adam moved so fast Rowena couldn’t follow him. He was suddenly standing in front of his accomplice, grabbing her by the chin and forcing her to look upwards towards his face.

“I thought I’ve made myself pretty clear about this topic,” he replied. “I don’t care.”

“But…” Talbot tried to protest, but instead she groaned when Adam’s hand fell to her throat and he squeezed as he picked her up from her seat.

“ _I don’t care_ ,” he repeated, punctuating every word. “This world can burn. All the demons can burn, too, and that includes you, my dear.” He let go off her and Talbot fell back on the armchair with a whimper.

“But…” Talbot coughed slightly before she continued. “What about you…?”

“Well, I am a special case, aren’t I?” Adam said, with that cold cackle again. “I was created by torturing an archangel. There are very few things that can kill me. Maybe Michael himself with his special archangel sword is one of them. But he would have to catch me first for that.”

He laughed as if that was the most hilarious joke he had ever heard and Rowena had to bite back a heave. He was so proud of himself he didn't realize he was bragging about letting the world burn to his only actual ally. What a complete idiot.

Talbot seemed annoyed by that too.

"I'll check on the witch," she said, standing up from her seat.

"You do that," Adam replied, prowling around the apartment as if he was looking for something else to destroy.

Rowena considered for a moment to pretend that she was still passed out, but then again, what would be the point? They were going to kill her... or they would attempt to do so anyway. So it really didn't matter if she kept her eyes open for it or not. She only hoped that Sam had understood what she'd tried to tell him and that he wouldn't rush into the apartment.

"How are you holding up?" Talbot asked her. She touched the locks that kept the iron chains in place around Rowena's wrists.

"Peachy! I am having a great time," Rowena replied, grinning at her. She hoped the bruises that were certainly in her face wouldn't diminish the biting irony in her words.

"You have no one to blame by yourself," Talbot replied, calmly. "If you had put your warding up again after we left, we wouldn't have been able to walk in here and attack you in the first place."

"Right, why didn't I think of that?" Rowena rolled her eyes. "Maybe because I didn't picture Meg's right hand woman turning out to be a traitorous bitch."

Talbot smiled back at her and finally stopped adjusting and toying with the chains.

"You didn't need to take this personally, Rowena. It'll all be over soon anyway."

Rowena thought about insulting her again, but she couldn't muster up the energy to do it. Not when she shuffled on the chair trying to find a more comfortable position and discovered something very interesting: instead of making the chains tighter, Talbot had loosened them up just a little bit. Just enough for her to slide her hands free.

She'd have to choose the moment carefully. Sam's life might depend on it, after all.

 

* * *

 

The car swerved to the left and almost got out of the road. Meg grabbed unto the nearest thing (which turned out to be Eris' arm) and looked up irritated.

"Be careful, Sam!" she screamed at him.

Sam recovered control of the wheel as both him and Mary threw a surprised look at the Impala's backseat, as if two immortal creatures appearing out of thin air on it wasn't a daily occurrence for them.

"What are you two doing here?" Mary asked.

"Sam, we have reason to believe Rowena is in trouble," Eris declared.

That didn't have the intended effect they were waiting for. Sam simply straightened his shoulders and kept on driving towards the horizon, where the dawn was beginning to break.

"I know," he groaned. "They made her call me and she used the code word for distress."

"Great. Did she manage to tell you the person that has her is your murderous little brother?" Meg wanted to know.

"Adam?" Mary said and it was relief that someone had already explained to her what that meant. "How...?"

"It's not of import," Eris interrupted her. "What matters is, this is a trap for Sam. He intends to kill you."

"Figures," Sam replied.

Eris frowned.

"I don't understand," she said, looking at Meg. "He's not slowing down or stopping."

Meg had to concede that was very strange indeed.

"Sam, did you hear what we said?" she said. Sam said and Meg understood. "Oh, great. He doesn't care. We're marching right into the trap of the white-eyed demon with a personal vendetta against him. Just when I thought this day couldn't get any better."

"If he targeted Rowena, it was because of me," Sam said. "I have to help her. None of you have to come."

"And I've told you I'm not letting you go there alone!" Mary said. "It's bad enough Michael has Dean. I'm not losing you too."

“And I don’t want to lose anyone else!”

Eris and Meg exchanged a look. After Michael had fled the bunker, the two of them along with Castiel and Jack had got to work. Meg had tracked the Impala with some scrying she was forced to improvise (those kind of minor tracking spells had never been her strong suit) and Eris had assured her she could get them inside the car without much trouble.

They had also agreed Castiel was going to stay with Jack to help him clean up the mess. And that they needed to break the news of what’d happened gently.

Meg was now regretting this decision. If there was something she wasn’t, it was gentle.

Eris, however, seemed to be channeling her father, because she was the one who took upon herself to speak:

“Sam, you need to know. Something happened in the bunker…”

That finally got him to slow down and finally to stop the car at the side of the road. His face was pale, as if he was about to vomit. Mary stared at them with eyes wide open, a horrified expression crawling up to her face as she did.

“All of them?” she asked, as if she hadn’t heard it the first time. “All of them… dead?”

“I… I’m sorry,” Eris murmured.

Meg didn’t know if that was what she thought it was appropriate to say or if Castiel had instructed her on it. In any case, it seemed like very little in comparison to the wave of emotions that the Winchesters were going through. Sam leaned against the wheel, breathing in slowly, while Mary covered her eyes and then her mouth with both hands. It seemed like it was taking all her might to not start screaming again.

And it was… strange. Meg didn’t care for the hunters in the bunker; they had been largely irrelevant to her. She still remembered when she’d woken up with nausea and Maggie had been kind enough to get the pregnancy test for her, but that was it. Nothing that would compel her to weep over them now they’ve all been smitten.

But she did feel a tug in the depths of her chest when she saw Sam broken up like that. Dammit, Castiel definitely should’ve been the one to tell him. He knew how to do these things. As it was, all she could offer was a clumsy pat on the shoulder and an empty:

“It wasn’t your fault, Sam.”

Sam said nothing. He just sat up and took in a deep shuddering breath. It was as if he was putting his grief on hold and it was both disturbing and fascinating to watch. Like watching a Jenga tower wondering how long it’d take for it to completely fall apart.

“We can still help Rowena. Even if they killed her, she has the spell… we have to go to her. We can mourn for the others later.”

“Cas and Jack shouldn’t be alone right now,” Mary pointed out.

“You should take the car,” Sam decided. “Eris, can you take me the rest of the way to Chicago?”

“You mean, us,” Meg said. “We’re coming with.”

“You don’t have to…”

“We’re coming with, Sam,” Meg insisted. “You’re going to need backup. Adam is not a run-of-the-mill demon.”

“I’ve killed white-eyed demons before.”

“Yeah, when you were all juiced-up on…” Meg started protesting and then she stopped. Had he told Mary all of that ugly business with the demon blood? And more important, did she want Eris to know about it when she knew she was actually looking for a way to make herself more powerful? Not that she thought she would foolish enough to try, but… it was better to prevent it altogether. “I mean, when you still had your freaky psychic powers. You don’t have those anymore, do you?”

Sam glared at her through the rearview mirror, but he shook his head, defeated.

“Well, then, we’re coming with. And that’s the end of it,” Meg said.

“You’re going to let Eris fight Adam again?” Mary asked, frowning.

Eris gasped offended and opened her mouth.

“I’d love for you to suggest a way for me to stop her,” Meg said, before her daughter could add another word. “But you know what they say, if kids are going to drink, they better do it at home. If they’re going to fight bloodthirsty monster, I might as well be by her side when she does.”

“Yeah. Might as well,” Eris quipped.

Nobody seemed to want to argue.

Eris had also teleported Meg’s chair to the trunk, so once they got it and basically every weapon that Sam thought could be useful in the upcoming fight, Mary turned the car around and drove away.

“Meg, can I ask you something?” Sam said when the three of them were alone.

“Right now? Is it more important than the rescue mission we’re in?”

“It’s about it,” he replied. “Why are you doing this? Adam could kill you too.”

“He won’t,” Eris answered instead. “I’ll kill him first. He’s my responsibility, so I have to deal with him.”

“And there’s your answer.” Meg shrugged. “If she goes, I go. And besides… believe it or not, I’ve come to really appreciate Rowena. I’d be bummed if she were to die permanently.”

Sam stared at her for a few seconds in silence, as if he was making sure that she was telling the truth, and then he nodded.

Of course, Meg wasn’t about to admit that all of that was only partially truth. For reasons she couldn’t understand, she had the sudden urge to see Sam live to fight another day. Not just because Castiel and Eris cared about him, not because she particularly cared. She liked him better than Dean, that was for sure, but if it had been him that Michael was riding inside, she would’ve tried to stab him just the same.

No, it was because of the way he’d almost fallen apart inside the car when they told him about the hunters’ deaths. Because she recognized the way his shoulders had slumped, the way his hands trembled even as they gripped around the wheel tightly. She knew that moment of absolute despair all too well, when it all seemed lost, the moment that came right before the decision to keep on fighting anyway. She had been there more times than she cared to admit.

What the hell was this? Empathy? She didn’t like it, but dammit, she was going to drag Sam out of that apartment alive if it was the last thing she did.

Eris put a hand in each of their shoulders and the next second, they were on the alleyway in front of Rowena’s buildings. Everything seemed normal: it was a busy morning in uptown Chicago, with people coming and going in the street and the doorman standing vigilant just like the last time Meg had been there. Nothing that would make anyone suspect that there was something fishy going on in the penthouse.

That was exactly what Adam wanted. For Sam to simply walk in thinking he was going to see Rowena before he attacked them.

Sam slung the duffle bag of his shoulder and unzipped it.

“Holy oil,” he said, handing Meg a bottle, which she immediately gave to Eris. She didn’t want that thing anywhere near her again, thank you very much. “Angel blades…”

“Got my own,” Meg replied, letting slide from inside of her jacket’s sleeve and holding it up for Sam to see. “So how are we going to do this?”

“I go in, he attacks me, then you come in and help me.”

“Simple enough.”

“But what if he kills you?” Eris asked.

“He won’t. Not right away. He’s going to want me to suffer,” Sam said. “For leaving him there. For not helping him when I had the chance.”

Meg said nothing to that. She could’ve lied and said that also hadn’t been Sam’s fault, but she wasn’t sure he would believe her any more than he did when she said the same about Michael’s attack.

“Sam…”

“Be careful, please,” he added. “I know you’re powerful, but if he hurts you, Cas is never going to forgive me.”

He didn’t need to say he wasn’t going to forgive himself either, if it technically was Adam hurting them. Meg simply nodded and made a mocking military salute to him. Sam breathed in deeply, made sure the angel blade was well hidden inside of his sleeve and stalked towards the building’s door.

“Will this work?” Eris asked.

“Don’t worry, honey,” Meg said, with a little more confidence than she actually felt. “Now, be a darling and fly us all the way up there, will you?”

If someone had been looking at the alleyway at that precise moment, they would have though their eyes were betraying them or they had gone insane, because the woman in the wheelchair and the teenager with her simply disappeared.

Sam, however, found it comforting when he looked back over his shoulder and couldn’t spot them anywhere.


	17. Chapter 17

The elevator light indicating that someone was coming up to the penthouse lit up. Rowena stared at it, her hands clutching the armrests. The steel of the knife Talbot held to her neck was cold, the hand the demon had on her shoulder held her tightly. Luckily for her, both Talbot and Adam were also hyper-focused on the elevator and the person that was coming up it, so they didn’t notice that she had been closing and opening her palms repeatedly, trying to conjure up even a little spark of magic.

It wasn’t working. Even if she managed to slip out of her chains completely, she was still tired, hungry, dehydrated and in pain. It was going to take all of her strength to even stand up and help Sam when he arrived, but she was going to try anyway because…

Something moved out of the corner of her eye.

“Almost here!” Adam gloated. He twirled with the poke, and then looked at it pensively. “I think I’ll start by breaking his kneecaps. What do you think, Talbot?”

“Not bad,” Talbot muttered, but it was obvious her heart wasn’t in it. She was too tense, gripping the handle of the knife too tightly.

And perhaps that worked in Rowena’s favor, because she managed to move her head ever so slightly towards the right, to where she’d thought she’d seen a movement…

Eris was standing on Rowena’s bedroom doorway, so completely immobile she could have passed for a marble statue in her short shite dress. No, Rowena realized. She had moved: to press a finger against her lips, beckoning her to stay silent. Rowena didn’t dare nod back to indicate she’d received the message, because at that precise moment, there was a “ding” and the elevator’s door opened.

“Rowena…” Sam called out… right before Adam sneaked behind him and smashed the poke against his shoulders. His bones cracked louder but he barely groaned as he collapsed on the ground.

“Samuel!” Rowena cried out, right before Talbot grabbed a hand full of hair and yanked her head up, so she could hold her knife closer to the jugular.

“Keep quiet,” she warned her, menacingly.

Adam ignored the both of them, as if he’d forgotten they were even there.

“Well, hello, brother,” he greeted Sam with a smile. “It’s been a while.”

“Adam…” Sam started, but Adam swung the poke again, this time directly at Sam’s face. His skull bounced against Rowena’s floor painfully.

“What?” Adam asked. The composure he’d barely managed to keep before had disappeared completely, melted under the heat of his ferocious anger and resentment. “What are you gonna say to me?!” he screamed, as he knelt before Sam and grabbed his hair to force him to look up at him. “That you’re sorry? That you didn’t mean to? What?!”

“I… we didn’t…” Sam mumbled, but even if he’d had an excuse to offer, Adam clearly didn’t want to hear it: he punched Sam hard, straight in the mouth. Rowena saw a thin stream of blood appear on his lips and suffocated a sob.

“Ten years!” Adam continued, his eyes disappearing behind the milky white that signaled his new nature. “Ten years in the Cage! With Lucifer! Do you know how long that is in Hell?! Do you know what he did to me?!”

“Y-yes…” Sam stammered. He swallowed loudly and raised his gaze at him. “I know this won’t mean much to you. But I am… I am sorry.”

That only seem to enrage Adam even further, because he let out an animalistic growled and punched Sam again, this time in the nose. The sound of it breaking sent a shiver down Rowena’s spine.

“No, you’re not,” Adam said. “But you will be.”

He grabbed him by the neck, half pulling him up towards himself. Sam’s left arm hanged useless at his side, probably broken, but Rowena saw the ever so slight movement of his right hand.

Unfortunately, so did Talbot.

“Adam!” she screamed out.

Several things happened at the same time.

The first was that an impossible strong force pushed Talbot away, making her fly across the apartment and crash against the opposite wall, which broke loudly under the impact. At the same time, Sam lifted his hand. The angel blade glinted in the morning light for a second before he sank it to the heel in Adam’s neck. The demon screamed out in pain and let go of Sam, who scrambled quickly to his feet and ran towards her.

Rowena saw her chance: she pulled her hands from the iron shackled. The skin of her wrists and the back of her hands flayed slightly as she did, sending a searing pain through them, but what was a little more after Adam had tortured her all through the night?

Meg rolled up behind her. She had several hex bags that she’d probably looted from Rowena’s room and she knew none of them would be very effective against the demons, but it didn’t matter: the Queen of Hell was a sight for sore eyes. She went to say something about it, but her knees almost caved in when she tried to stand, so instead, she leaned her entire weight against Sam’s chest, as he held her up with an arm around her waist.

“Rowena…” Sam repeated, but before he could continue, a laughter echoed through the trashed penthouse.

“Really?” Adam asked, standing up. Blood gushed from his neck and his skin was still flashing orange but the only thing Sam had apparently managed to do was piss him off as he grabbed the blade and slowly pull it out from his wound. “That was not very smart of you, Sammy. Not smart at all.”

He lifted the blade and threw it at them. It spun in the air and Rowena let out a yelp when Sam grabbed her arm and yanked her around. It took her a second to understand he was trying to pull her out of the way of its trajectory.

He needn’t have bothered. The blade stopped in mid-air several inches away from them still… and promptly flew in a different direction, straight towards Eris open, glowing hand. The girl took a step forwards, holding it up defiantly along with the one she had on her other hand as well.

“You’re outnumbered,” she warned him.

Adam’s nostrils flared, but the smile in his face didn’t change at all.

“Well, that’s just gonna make it all the more fun when I tear you all to pieces, then.” He turned towards Meg, frowning as if he was confused. “I don’t understand. I thought Michael was going to kill you.”

“He procrastinated,” Meg said simply, with a shrug, but she was more interested in Talbot, who was slowly staggering to her feet with groans of pain. “Seriously, Talbot? After all I did for you?”

Talbot didn’t answer to the taunt. Instead, she launched forwards with a scream of rage and that was all the signal that Adam did to do the same, except that he was running towards Sam. Rowena concentrated all that was left of her energy and magic, push it to her fingertips…

Eris tackled the demon and they both rolled down on the floor. On her part, Meg had managed to wrap her hand around Talbot’s neck and was dragging her around the floor, her chair rolling around with her seemingly controlling it as she punched her former second in command on the face over and over again. Sam grabbed Rowena’s hand and pulled her away from the fight towards the rooms.

“What are you doing? We have to help!” Rowena protested.

“We’re going to,” Sam promised her.

In the middle of the hallway, there was a grey duffle bag that Rowena recognized as one of Sam’s, because she wouldn’t be caught dead possessing something so ugly. He opened it up and passed her two glass bottles that had been fashioned into Molotov cocktails.

“Holy oil,” he explained, as he also took out a lighter and clumsily tried to turn it on with his good hand.

Rowena took pity of him, grabbed the lighter from his hand and turn it on. The noises coming from what had been her living room weren’t encouraging: a lot of shouting and crashing, and she was not surprised to see when they returned that the armchairs had been destroyed and her flat screen was on the floor, smashed to bits. Meg had managed to keep her chair moving, even though there were a lot more obstacles for her to move around. Talbot’s face was covered in blood as she hanged on miserably from Meg’s chair.

Meanwhile, Adam had taken one of the angel blades from Eris and kept trying to stab her with it, though Rowena doubted it would hurt her more than it’d hurt him. Sparkles flew from the weapons every time they clashed, as Eris ducked and dodged it with the agility of a dancing flame.

It wasn't enough. Adam flicked her wrist, cutting her across the stomach, tearing her dress and forcing her to stumble backwards.

Rowena didn't hesitate: she threw the bottle at him, watching it fly away and giving an extra push with her mind, with her will and her magic, so it would find its mark.

Sam's bottle hit him at the same time as him, one on the head and one on the back. The holy fire engulfed him in the blink of an eye.

Adam shrieked and turned his attention towards them, his face contorted in a mask of pain. He still had the angel blade clutched tightly in his hand and his blue eyes glimmered with cold fury.

It took a second, less than a fraction of a second, for Rowena to understand what he was going to do, to know that Sam wouldn't have time to lean down and pick another bomb, to figure exactly what she had to do about it.

Fate had told her she was going to die at Sam Winchester's hands. She didn't think it'd be like this. But she had no time for regrets.

Adam charged towards Sam, looking very much like the demon he was with the flames consuming his body. Sam stepped back, ready to fight... but Rowena jumped between the too, clinging to Adam's shoulders, ignoring the way it burned as she started reciting a spell that climbed up to her throat from the depths of her guts, from the very bottom of her chest. She cursed him with her full power, with the fury and the pain he'd inflicted on her, with the strength and the feelings the man standing behind her inspired her.

The spell wasn't a complicated one. It did what it was meant: it picked them up like a wind, propelling them forwards. Rowena sank her nails in the burning flesh and hanged on as Adam tried to push her away, to shake her off, and kept her eyes wide open as the invisible force she had invoked pushed them straight towards the window.

The exploding glass boomed in her eardrums, reverberating through her entire body along with the demon's shrilling screams. She was vaguely aware of the way it cut her skin, but it was nothing compared with the flames that had passed from Adam's clothes to hers. She still grabbed held on to Adam's writhing body with all that was left of herself, ignoring the searing pain the blinded her for a moment or two.

Or perhaps it was just the sky above her head, that looked white and strange and so, so close... right before the spell dissipated like a scent in the air and gravity took a hold of them.

 

* * *

 

"Rowena!"

Sam lunched forwards as if he was ready to jump after her. Eris moved fast, grabbing unto his clothes and pulling him back from the edge with enough force to knock both of them to the floor.

Meg turned her attention to Talbot, whom she still had grabbed by the throat. She pulled her up until Talbot could look at her face with the one eye she could still keep open. The other, just like most of her face, had become a mass of bruises and blood.

"Run," Meg whispered.

The other demon needn't be told twice. Her mouth opened wide and the black smoke came pouring out fast, whirling around Meg before it found a vent and slid right in, leaving nothing but the familiar stench of sulphur behind it.

Meg turned around, but she shouldn't have worried. Sam and Eris were nowhere to be seen, but she was certain they couldn't have gone very far. She teleported out of the wrecked penthouse and into the street to gander what the situation down there was.

Rowena had landed on her back on the roof of a car. Her long red hair was spread wildly around her pale face and her eyes stared right at Meg, lifeless. Her neck was crooked at in an unnatural angle and her mouth was ajar, with a thin line of blood sliding underneath.

There was already a crowd gathered around her. Rowena would have hated that, because her dress was burned in places, one of her shoes had flown away and her usually impeccable make up was smeared. If she'd been alive, Meg would've joked about her looking like a hot mess, just to annoy her.

"Oh, my God!"

"Someone call 911!"

"Did she jump? What happened?"

"There was... there was some other guy... he was here just a second ago..."

She resisted the urge to tell them not to bother while she rolled past them. Yeah, Rowena looked pretty dead right now, but she was going to get better. She would, wouldn't she? That was a nasty dive she had taken, but she had that spell thingy that always brought her back to life. She would be fine. Just fine.

Meg suppressed the cold doubt trying to creep in her mind to focus on more urgent matters.

Sam stood in front of the car and Rowena's body. He had his hands extended towards her, as if he didn't dare to touch her, and his now was crinkled as if he was barely holding himself together not to cry right then.

"Sam," Meg called him. He didn't move. "Sam!"

He snapped out of it, at least long enough for Meg to get to him.

"We have to go." She looked around, at the half dozen people staring and a very different wave of panic hit her. "Where is Eris?"

"Right here." Her daughter appeared right besides Meg and she took a second to look closely at her. Adam had managed to land a few blows and cuts, but the only evidence of that were the stains and rips in Eris dress and jacket. "I'm sorry, mom. He got away."

Meg breathed out, not even bothering to hide her relief at that. She didn't really care if Adam got away or not, as long as her daughter was safe.

She wasn't going to say that where Sam could hear her, of course.

"Let's go."

"What are you doing?" some guy screamed at Sam when he picked Rowena up. Her head hanged limp to the side and Meg reminded herself once again that death was only temporary for her. "Hey, the ambulance is on the way! Put her do—"

The Chicago street disappeared. Instead, they found themselves standing in the middle of the bunker. Someone (Meg suspected Mary, though it could also had been Castiel) had picked up the fallen shelves and piled the books on the tables. Eris swept them away with a gesture of her hand and Sam gently laid down Rowena on the open surface.

"Is she... is she going to be alright?" Eris asked.

"Of course she will be," Meg assured her. She wished she was as confident as she tried to sound, but there was no reason to scare her daughter. Instead, she tried distracting her with another question: "Where is everybody?"

Sam rubbed his eyes and took in a deep, shaky breath.

"Outside," he said simply.

Jack, Mary and Castiel had worked tirelessly in the few hours they had been away. The hunters' bodies had all been carefully wrapped up in white shrouds and laid next to one another on the woody area outside of the bunker. Castiel and Jack swung axes to the side, barely altering their rhythm when Meg, Eris and Sam approached them. To the side, Mary was finishing wrapping up another body: a young man, with barely a shade of stubble covering his cheeks. Meg looked away at the rest of the white figures on the ground and wondered, briefly, which one of them would be Maggie.

Mary looked up at them, her eyes bloodshot and watery.

"There's..." she started, but her voice broke down. Sam strode towards her and silently wrapped his arms around her body while she buried her face in his shoulder.

He let go after a few seconds. He shuddered as if he was choking back a sob and then strode towards Castiel. The angel also said nothing, but just handed him the axe.

"I could just..." Eris said, lifting her fingers, but Meg put a hand over them to prevent her from snapping them.

"They need to do this, Eris," Castiel said.

Eris frowned, but she didn't insist. They stood to the side, watching the Winchesters and Jack pile up the logs, readying the pyres that would burn for hours afterwards.

Meg noticed that while Sam and Mary had to stop every few minutes to collect themselves or wipe their eyes, Jack kept working without missing a beat, almost mechanical. His face was dry and his jaw was clenched, but for some reason, he just didn't seem as affected as the humans.

Was he too angry at Michael to feel anything else? Or was he, like Eris, just struggling to grasp the others' grief?

After a long afternoon, the pyres were all ready to burn. Jack, Sam and Mary took turns laying them on top of it and passing a single torch around to set them on. Meg didn't find anything particularly solemn about burning flesh, but she stayed put, mainly because Castiel and Eris did. Even then, she started to suspect they weren't there because they had been particularly to those hunters, but because they wanted to support Sam.

She could understand that. They were going to need him in the coming days. If he died, if he fell, Adam and Michael were going to come for the rest of them next. This had been a warning. To them, attacking and killing their friends was nothing, like squashing bugs underneath their thumbs. But Sam was clearly aching. Perhaps almost broken under the weight of his grief.

And if Sam didn't have the strength to keep them together and organize them...

Castiel put a hand on her shoulder and Meg turned around, just in time to see Eris disappear through the bunker's door. They followed suit to find her sitting next to Rowena's body. The witch was just as dead as she had been before and Meg once again felt the tug of fear deep inside of her stomach. The spell should be acting already. She should be coming back by now, her bones healing, her heart beating once more...

Eris stared at a corner, serious and silent.

"What's wrong?" Castiel asked.

"They're mad at her."

"Who do you mean?"

"The reapers. They're mad at her and won't let her return. But her magic's strong, so they'll have to let go of her eventually."

"How do you know this?" Castiel asked.

Meg wouldn't even have bothered, but for once, Eris deigned to give them an answer.

"I can see the strings, sometimes, if I look closely. The lines the story will follow."

"Do you mean... premonitions?"

"No." Eris clicked her tongue, apparently frustrated that Castiel wasn't understanding what she meant. "It's like... everything is a system and sometimes I can see the gears. I can see how things have been or how they're supposed to be. But people keep doing things that pull them out of that path over and over. Rowena, Sam, Jack... you... you all keep changing everything. Do you know what I mean?"

Meg and Castiel exchanged a look. She was relief to see that Castiel was just as confused as she was.

"I'm sorry, sweetie. Maybe we're just not meant to get it," Meg suggested.

Eris bit the inside of her cheek.

"Maybe," she said. She still has her eyes fixed on Rowena. "Can I stay with her? Until she comes back."

"Of course. I'm sure Sam will appreciate it if you do."

Eris said nothing to this. She stayed still as a statue on her chair. Meg wasn't even sure she was even breathing.

And now that she had a moment to think...

"Cas, can I talk to you?"

They walked away from the library into what had become their room and Meg gestured at the door to close it.

Castiel sat down on the bed in front of her.

"What is it?"

Meg turned her chair towards him and took a deep breath as she sunk her face in her hands. She had been so caught up in Michael and Adam's ploys, in her efforts to protect her family, that she hadn't really stopped to think about...

"Meg?"

She lifted up her face at him.

"I... I talked to Billie."

"What?" Castiel leaned forwards towards her. "When?"

It had been less than two days ago, but it felt like an eternity had passed ever since.

She told him about what Billie had said, about how the universe had shifted to accommodate Eris, about Meg's own name and the things she had been experiencing since finding it.

"They're like... visions. Dreams. Thoughts that just pop in mind unannounced and I never know..."

"Memories?" Castiel asked, frowning.

Meg wriggled her hands for a moment.

"It's not impossible. There are many demons who remember who they were in life, who remember their humanity. Just..."

"Not you," Castiel said, leaning his head slightly.

Meg looked at the ceiling. She was relieved that she didn't have to say it out loud, that Castiel understood without her having to say it out loud.

"I didn't think I could ever get them back," she confessed. "Or maybe I'm just creating false memories to fill in the blanks. That's crazy. Do you think I'm going crazy? Because I feel like I am."

"Of course you're not," Castiel assured her. But it still took him a moment to offer an explanation as to what was going on with her. "The human soul is the most powerful element in all of creation," he started. "It can contain all the beautiful memories that a person experienced in their lifetime, all their emotions, all that they were, and persist even in their afterlife. It doesn't surprise me that it contains some of the ugly aspects as well. Even if it's being molded into something else, it can still retain some of what made it so special, of what made the person it was a part of... unique."

"What are you saying?" Meg asked. She was not in the mood for cryptic angelic thinking.

"I'm saying I don't think you're making these memories up or recovering them. I think you had them all along with you, but you just... didn't dare to look at them. Because they were painful. And you were scared."

She hated that he could read her so easily.

"Meg, you don't have to... you know you don't have to dredge up those things if they hurt you."

She also hated that he always managed to say exactly the thing that she wanted to hear. But even though locking the door and try to contain the stream of memories flooding her was tempting... well, she didn't think it was possible now that she'd started. And also...

"What if there is something there that Eris needs me to remember?" she pointed out. "I can't just ignore that because it might upset me."

She wasn't sure why Castiel smiled at that. She also wasn't sure why when he looked at her with such softness in his eyes, it made what she supposed was whatever she had in place if a heart skip a beat. She just knew that when he stretched his arms at her, she was certain there was no better place for her to be than between them. She rolled her chair up to the bed and moved to settle down on his lap. He cradled her against his chest, running his fingers through her hair as if he was trying to soothe her. Meg let out a shuddering breath and relaxed against her angel's warmth. All the fear and the tension was lifted from her in a second.

"How far you've come."

That was definitely not the comment Meg was expecting to hear from him in the middle of a cuddling session.

"What do you mean?"

"I remember a demon that was all fierceness and fury," he explained. "I remember her only looking out for herself."

"You think I can't be that demon anymore?" Meg asked, scandalized.

"I think I'm glad you found a place where you don't have to be that all the time."

That was a very diplomatic answer but Meg wasn't having it. She grabbed Castiel's chin, making sure to sink her nails ever so slightly in his skin as she did so, and turned his face to look at her.

"This is all your damn fault," she accused him. "If you hadn't roped me into caring for you in the first place..."

"I'm sorry, I _roped you_ into it?" Castiel replied. He was smiling again, this time wider as of he was barely holding back his laughter. "That's not the way I remember it."

"Well, we've just established that my memory works great, so I don't even know why you're arguing with me about this."

"Of course. If you say so..."

Meg was starting to wish he'd never learned the proper use of sarcastic remarks. She put a hand on his shoulders and she unceremoniously pushed him down in the bed. His arms lassoed around her waist and dragged her down with him, but neither of them cared as their lips clashed together.

"How about I show you just how fierce I can still be?" she growled in his ear.

"Meg," Castiel sighed. "It's been a long day. We've lost so many... we should... be respectful of their memory..."

The way his body tensed up when she slid a hand underneath his shirt contradicted his words, though.

"Well, that's exactly why we should," she argued, her lips still close to his neck's skin so her breath would tickle him. “We should honor them by… moving on…”

Castiel opened his mouth, perhaps to protest some more, but then Meg slid a hand underneath his clothes and his voice transformed into a groan of pleasure. And she knew she’d won the argument.


	18. Chapter 18

The bar’s door swung open with a bang. The patrons that were sitting closer to it looked up and had to do a double take at the man that’d just walked in, at his tattered clothes that smell of smoke and Sulphur and the hair that the consistency and the shininess of plastic. As he moved around the tables, more and more turn their heads at him, their eyes opening wide with fear and surprise. The conversations died down one by one as he limped towards the counter, dragging his left leg behind him, and sat down on one of the stools.

“Whiskey. Neat,” he ordered with a broken voice.

It was really not surprising, as his throat must have been as damaged as the rest of him. His neck and half of his face were burned down, his skin transformed in a mass of hot red flesh. His mouth was twisted in a disgruntled gesture and when the bartender set his glass on the table, he noticed that at least three fingers in his right hand had been burned into a single, horrifying claw.

Despite this, the bartender swallowed and tried to start a conversation with him.

“Are you alright, mister?”

The burned man grabbed the glass and gulped down its content without flinching. The strings of flesh of his neck tensed and released as he swallowed.

“Leave the bottle,” he said, in the same menacing whisper as before. “And don’t ask stupid questions.”

The bartender hurriedly filled the man’s glass again, place the bottle next to him and scurried away. The burned man didn’t seem offended at all by his or the other patrons’ attitudes. For the looks of it, it just seemed like he wanted to be left alone to nurse his drink and the bartender was more than happy to let him.

He still couldn’t help but throwing a side glance at him every now and them. It was far from him to discriminate anyone because of their appearance and it was obvious that this man had recently been in some time of horrific accident, but still… there was something about him that greatly unsettled him.

He was surprised, though, when he saw another man sitting next to him. He hadn’t seen this second guy come in or take a seat next to the burned man, but there he was now, in a sharp blue striped suit, talking to the other one in a calm, casual tone.

“… I see you didn’t succeed,” the man in the suit said when the bartender moved closer to them.

“The whore and her brat were there,” the burned man replied. Despite the grave tone of his voice, he was clearly seething with rage. “Why were they there, Mikey? I thought you were supposed to deal with them.”

The man in the suit clenched his jaw, apparently annoyed that he was being interrogated like that.

“There were complications,” he admitted. “She’s stronger than she looks.”

“Stronger than she looks!” repeated the burned man. He let out an ugly, wheezing sound that made the hairs in the back of the bartender’s head stand. It occurred to him that this was laughter, but could laughter be so joyless? “No doubt. Are you sure you want to kill her?”

The bartender stopped, paralyzed with fear. He had the impression the burned man wasn’t talking figuratively.

“What else would we do about her?”

“I don’t know. I mean, with a little coercion, she could become useful. Have you thought about that?”

The man in the suit didn’t answer. The bartender had the feeling that he needed to step back, grab his phone, call for someone to come and listen to these men chat, because they were up to something and it terrified him to no end to try and figure out what it was. He was almost six feet tall, burly and strong, he had escorted drunk and disorderly patrons out the door for ages.

But for reasons he couldn’t explain even to himself, he remained planted exactly where he was, staring at those two men in terror, unable to decide if he should confront them or call the police or something. They were talking about killing or kidnapping a girl, in a medium tone of voice, as if they didn’t even care about who could hear them.

They had to be psychopaths.

“No.” The man in the suit shook his head. “It would be like a human keeping a bear on a leash. Eventually she’ll turn against us. We have to eliminate her.”

“Or find a way around her to get to Sammy.” The burned man poured another glass for himself and drank it down. “But then I’d have to kill him fast. Damn. I was really hoping I could take my time with him.”

Slowly, he turned his head towards the bartender. He swallowed and took a step backwards, his eyes quickly moving around to find something to do with his hands, something that would allow him to pretend he had been too busy to listen to their conversation.

But when he turned around, the burned man was standing right in front of him.

The bartender blinked. That was impossible. He couldn’t have possible jumped over the counter, walked around him and be standing there, with the whiskey bottle in his hand, his clear blue eyes smoldering.

“What are you staring at?” the burned man asked.

It was a nightmare. It had to be.

The bartender put his empty palms up, to show that he was holding nothing in them.

“Look, I don’t want any trouble.”

The burned man’s face twisted up. The scars moved uncomfortable, revealing something the bartender hadn’t noticed before: a whole through his cheek, that revealed part of his teeth, in the most chilling smile he’d ever seen.

“That’s a shame,” the burned man said, his eyes turning an unnatural milky white. “Because I do.”

 

* * *

 

Their faces haunted her dreams.

She could see them still, laughing and dancing, their dresses twirling around their legs, their hands clapping and their feet light on the ground. Their hair fell in braids over their shoulders, adorned with wild flowers and leaves, every single one of them a spirit of the woods.

She laid on the grass, listening to the music one of them played in her harp. Music and laughter pleased the goddess: she was in the wind that blew through the branches overhead, in the breeze that caressed their faces as they slept, in their voices as they sang her praises.

The goddess spoke sometimes, like a whisper in their ears if they listened very carefully. She didn’t demand sacrifices or obedience or hard work like the new god that had come from the east. She liked little gifts, like flowers and fruit, wine and sweets, and in return, she kept them and their families well provided with gifts from the woods. Sometimes she talked about how she would need a doorway one day and one of the girls would be it, but she said that day was still very far away and when it came, the girls could choose whether to be it or not. For now, they should just dance and rejoice.

There were seven girls, her very own little congregation, that gathered around on the clearing once a week to dance and laugh and celebrate life. The elders knew what they did and they knew the priest disapproved of them, but the goddess was benevolent and in any case, who were they hurting?

The young woman laid on the grass, with the sun on her face, listening to her sisters’ singing, covering her face to see the rays of sun playing through her fingers…

There was smoke invading her nostrils, blinding her, singing her skin.

She ran, ignoring the heat around her, ran through the trees with her skin covered in sweat, her dress clinging to her skin. She could hear the men’s steps behind her, still screaming at her, calling her all sorts of terrible names.

Good. They could choke on the smoke.

The heat had dried up the stream. She didn’t jump over it, but let her feet sank in the still cool mud. The pomegranate trees were waiting for her, their branches extended towards her like the arms of a family welcoming her home. The fire had not reached them yet, but its light already reached through the leaves as if it was a faux dawn.

She was running out of time.

She jumped over the fallen trunks with the agility of a doe and fell to her knees in the middle of the clearing. The altar was still intact underneath the huge trunk, with the offerings her and her sisters had left there on brighter days, on sunnier days, on days that were literally going up in smoke right now: flower crowns and fruit, pieces of jewelry and talismans with their wishes encrypted in runes that only the goddess could read. Wishes that would no longer come true.

She extended her hands towards it and called out.

“Help us,” she begged. “They’re killing us. They’re destroying everything we built.”

The goddess remained silence.

“They call us witches and sorcerers, they say you’re a demon,” she continued. “Please, show them, like you’ve shown us. Save us.”

Her heart kept on beating, the only sound along with the fire’s crackling. For one terrifying minute, her stomach turned into a tight knot, fear crawling up her spine like an ugly bug looking to suck up everything she was.

Then, the wind started blowing through the branches.

She breathed out in relief, ready to laugh and cry, all at the same time.

But when the goddess spoke, she did so with a broken voice.

_I’m sorry._

“Why are you sorry?” she asked.

_I can’t protect you. Not like this._

“What do you mean?” the young woman insisted, her pulse quickening.

_The doorway. I need to enter your world. I need a doorway._

She sounded almost desperate, like she was about to cry from impotence. The young woman had never heard her like that and it only scared her further.

She breathed in the heated air around her and the fear that burned like hot lava inside her solidified and hardened inside of her.

“Then I’ll be your doorway. I pledge myself to you. I’ll be what you need me to be.”

A soft breeze, like a breath upon her face.

_You don’t know what that’ll take. Pain and suffering and darkness and centuries. You’ll be broken and tortured in ways you can’t imagine. You will change until you no longer know yourself before you’re ready to be my doorway._

“I don’t care,” the young woman said. She wasn’t stupid. The goddess that had never demanded sacrifices was telling her she needed to suffer and die for her. But she trusted her. She trusted she wouldn’t be asking this if there was another way, if this wasn’t important in a level that her human mind couldn’t comprehend. “I’ll do it. I’m not afraid. If that’s the way for us both to survive…”

Silence. Then…

_Swear it on your soul._

The young woman took a dep breath. The fire had reached the clearing; their own private church was burning to the ground. She spoke with a mouth full of ashes, with despair swelling in her chest.

“I swear it on my soul.”

A gust of wind blew through her, throwing her hair backwards. She lowered her head and put her hands together, praying for herself, praying for her sisters and neighbors and friends who were all burning because they dared to not worship the eastern god the way his priests had demanded they did…

The soldier’s hand was rough and strong as it grabbed a handful of her hair. She screamed, more out of surprise than out of pain as he pulled her up to her feet. There was blood gushing through one of his eyes, while the other one shone bright and yellow. He didn’t seem scare about the fire surrounding them. In fact, he was smiling with elation, as if it was all very funny to him.

“Oh, I like you,” he muttered. “Yes, I think I’m definitely going to keep you.”

“Let me go!” the young woman screamed, hitting his arm, his chest, anywhere she could reach, to try and get away from him. It was as useful as a mosquito trying to fight a bull. “Don’t touch me!”

“There’ll be time for that, don’t worry,” the soldier replied. He lifted up his head and his grin grew even wider. “Ah, here come my friends! They’re hungry, but I think they’ll get a nice meal out of you…”

The young woman lifted her head, incredulous as to what she was hearing. It was impossible. All the animals would’ve run away from the fire as if their life depended on it. But there was no denying, over the crackling of the fire, over the faraway screams, there were growls and howling, growing closer and closer…

 

* * *

 

She woke up with a startle and a strangled sob.

“Meg?”

She didn’t react at first. That wasn’t her name, this wasn’t her home, she didn’t…

But as she took in deep, strangled breaths, as she looked at the face of the man lying next to her (a man who wasn’t a man at all), everything came back to her slowly.

Castiel sat up and put an arm around her, brushing her sweaty hair aside with his other hand.

“Are you alright?” he asked, the concern growing in his clear blue eyes.

She tried to speak, but her mouth was dry. Instead she leaned against him and soaked in his warmth, the scent of his skin. He always smelled like the air before a storm, all the electricity charged in him betraying the power that still run through his veins despite his many falls.

She remained like that, with her face hidden on his neck while she waited for her hands to stop trembling. The images of the dream were fading fast, but the feeling of fear and despair that had accompanied it all was still very present, haunting her like the faces of the other priestess…

She shook her head and forced herself to speak calmly:

“Where’s Eris?”

“Still in the library,” Castiel informed her. “Rowena came back a few hours ago and she…”

“Why didn’t you wake me?”

Castiel moved away and watched her closely. Meg immediately regretted her cutting tone.

“You were resting. I thought you were… I thought these times when you slept helped you heal.”

Meg rubbed a hand through her face. She wasn’t sure that was true. Or maybe it was, but not in the way he imagined.

“I need to talk to her.”

“With… Rowena?”

Meg didn’t bother to clarify that was not who she meant. Instead, she gestured for her clothes to pick themselves up from the floor and land on her lap and for her chair to move closer to the bed. Without adding another word, Castiel helped her dress up and then sit on her chair.

“I’ll be right there with you,” he said, picking up his shirt from the floor. “Meg… Meg?”

She didn’t listen to him as she rolled out of the bedroom and through the empty halls of the bunker. She needed… she didn’t know what she needed, but she was restless, still reeling from what her dreams had revealed. She needed to confirm it wasn’t a complete madness. It was impossible. She’d never heard of something like that, she’d never figured it could…

Sam and Rowena were in the library, sitting next to each other, their heads pressed together and whispering. They moved away quickly when they heard the soft rumble of Meg’s chair, but she couldn’t help to notice that their hands were still tightly clasped together.

So she was definitely not imagining that there was something going on there, but then again, she was fucking an angel on practically daily basis. She wasn’t in a position to judge any of that.

“Have you seen Eris?” she asked them.

“She… went into the kitchen,” Sam informed her, and frowned almost immediately. “Are you okay? You look pale.”

Instead of answering, Meg turned her chair away from them.

Eris was, indeed, in the kitchen, though there wasn’t much of a kitchen to speak of anymore. All the surfaces were covered with empty glasses and dishes, broken eggshells, flour stains and empty cereal boxes. There was a pan still sizzling on the stove, with bacon grease all over it, and a milk pool on the floor from a carton that had been unceremoniously knocked down.

Meg teleported her chair down the steps and moved through the disaster, completely ignoring it. She found her daughter hunched over the table, devouring what seemed like a pancake oozing with maple syrup with her bare hands.

She stopped when she caught Meg out of the corner of her eyes, swallowed down and stood up.

“Hi, mom,” she muttered. “Umh… sorry about this. I was hungry and Mary said I could have whatever I wanted…”

Meg stared at her.

“You’ve… you’ve grown…” she mumbled, when she finally could speak.

She wasn’t much different from the teenager she had been just hours ago. A few inches taller, perhaps, with her long black hair falling over her shoulders, but she was definitely older, now appearing to look like a young woman in her early twenties. She’d changed from her white dress into a pair of jeans and a simple white tank top, though she’d kept the leather jacket. Her face and body had lost the last traces of any childhood fat: her cheekbones were sharper and her lips fuller, though her mismatched eyes still shone with the same mischievousness as before as she lowered her gaze towards her body.

“Yeah,” she chuckled. “I finally managed to trigger it, but, uh… I think I’m done growing for now.”

“Good,” Meg said, because she really didn’t know what else to say. “That’s… I’m glad. I…”

“Mom, is everything okay?”

She really needed people to stop asking her dead, because the truth was that she wasn’t certain anymore. She opened her mouth, though she didn’t know what she could possibly say…

Her cellphone rang, loud and clear with a single text. It had the name of a bar in and the name of a town near Chicago in it. Meg frowned at it.

“Let me get back to you on that,” she said. She quickly typed the words in her phone’s browser.

There had been a massacred in the small bar in the early hours of the morning. The police had spoken about a mass shooter at first, but as more details emerged, it was clear that none of the thirty-six victims that had been at that bar, drinking and playing pool just moments before all hell broke loose, had been shot. They had died of various other wounds: slashed throats, broken necks, stabbed hearts and…

“Sam!” Meg called out, turning around to leave the kitchen. “You need to see this.”

The pictures were blurry, even when they opened them in Sam’s computer and enhanced them. The police were obviously trying to keep bystanders and the press from taking pictures or videos of what had transpired, but still some of them made their way to social media. And there was no denying what they were seeing.

At least some of the victims had been smitten by an angel: their mouths open, contorted in silent screams, and their eyes transformed into large dark craters upon them.

Sam sat back in his chair, with his arms folded over his chest, looking like he was about to vomit as every person and immortal being left in the bunker gathered up around him to look at the pictures and read the reports.

“Was it them?” Mary asked.

“Who else could it be?” Meg replied, rolling her eyes.

“They’re teaming up now? That’s excellent news,” Rowena added. She dramatically rubbed her temples. “Really, that was just what we needed.”

“I don’t understand. I thought Adam hated Michael,” Eris said, frowning.

“Not as much as he hates the Winchesters,” Castiel explained. “You know what they say. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. They probably decided to work together to get to…”

“Me,” Sam finished. He sank his face in his hands. “This is all my fault.”

“Sam… you didn’t kill all those people,” Jack pointed out.

Meg wasn’t sure that was going to make him feel any better. And she was right, of course.

“No, but if I hadn’t been so stubborn about saving Dean first…”

He didn’t finish the sentence. Instead, he slammed the computer shut so strongly that even Eris jumped. None of them tried to stop him when he pushed his chair backwards and started pacing around the library, like a caged tiger.

“This was a message. They’re going to keep escalating things until I have no other choice but to…”

He didn’t finish that sentence either. Meg figured there was various ways in which that could go, though.

“Yeah, what _are_ you going to do?” she asked him, narrowing her eyes at him. “Give yourself up to them? Kill Dean?”

“No,” Mary intervened, shaking her head. “That is out of the question.”

“Well, those are the only two options I see standing from here.” Meg shrugged. “I mean… figuratively speaking, of course.”

“He can’t do that,” Rowena said. She sounded slightly desperate. “Sam, we have to find another way.”

“What other way?” Sam snapped, raising his arms, exasperated. “I’m open to suggestions!”

A deep silence fell in the library.

Meg bit the inside of her cheek, pensively. She had been playing a very careful game behind everyone’s back, a plan she hadn’t even confided in Castiel, because she needed it that way. But it seemed like nobody else was going to come up with anything, so perhaps it was time to show her hand.

“Well… you could give yourself up to them… let me finish!” she added, rising a finger when several people opened their mouths to interrupt her. “But… we could come with you. Set a little ambush of our own. Get closer to Michael and make sure he doesn’t get away this time.”

Castiel was the first one to realize she was being completely serious.

“And how exactly do you propose we go about that?” he asked, frowning. “They will know we’re coming, unless…”

“Unless we have an inside man that will inform us where they are exactly,” Meg said.

They all stayed silent again, pondering about what she was suggesting.

“I could make a tracking spell that would inform us of Sam’s whereabouts…” Rowena began, but Meg shook her head.

“They will see that coming. They’ll find the hex bag and destroy it in no time flat. We have to catch them off guard, make them think they’ve won… and then we attack.”

“But then, how will we know about where they’re taking Sam?” Eris asked.

Meg took a deep breath. Rowena was going to be very pissed off when she revealed what she’d been doing. Well, perhaps not only Rowena, but she had been the one who’d been hurt more by this particular machination.

“I have someone keeping an eye on them…”

 

* * *

 

Talbot stepped into the room, making sure her shoes didn’t sink on the pools of blood accumulated here and there all over the warehouse’s floor. They were new and she had no interest in making them dirty. At least, not right now.

“You’re late,” Adam said, from somewhere in the shadows.

Talbot forced herself to smile at him as she approached him.

“Sorry about that. Had to find a new meat suit.”

She didn’t add that, per Meg’s instructions, she couldn’t just take any body that came her way, she had to find one that had already been vacated. Something about not upsetting their allies but making them think about the implications of them possessing someone who was still alive.

Talbot didn’t particularly care for such details, but she still tried to follow her orders closely. And of course, after finding the homeless brunette woman she was inhabiting right now dead in an alleyway next to a dumpster, she had to make some adjustments, like getting her out of her tattered clothes and washing her hair. She’d been working as a crossroads demon for so long that she couldn’t forget that presentation was very important to closing deals.

Adam, clearly, wasn’t interested in closing deals with anybody. She had briefly passed the bar he and Michael had massacred and seen the mess they’d left behind, so she imagined his appearance wasn’t the best. But she wasn’t prepared to see the sorry state that he was in: his skin was still burned and scarred from the holy oil they had thrown at him, his clothes were ripped and bloodstain, his hair was sticky with something that could only be blood. Despite all this, he didn’t seem to mind, spread out on the couch with a blood of bourbon in his hand. He took a swig of it now and then, but for the most part, he seemed indifferent to everything that surrounded him. Even to her when she got closer and put a hand on his cheek.

“Does it hurt?” she asked him, eyeing the burned flesh.

“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” he said, and took another swig of the bottle, swatting Talbot’s hand away in the process.

She stepped backwards and pretended not to be bothered by that.

“What is this place?” she asked, looking around.

It had been an abandoned warehouse before, it seemed, but someone had gone through the trouble of bringing some things inside it: aside from the couch Adam was lying on, there was what seemed to be a surgical table, some chains hanging from the beams and even a desk and a chair with notes on top of it. Before she could move towards it, there was a flutter of wings behind her back.

Michael appeared on the doorway, holding himself with the same aplomb as always.

“This is my lab,” he informed her, with the same indifference that one would comment on the weather. “I had to move the subjects out for us to have a place to… lay low for a bit.”

As always when she was in the presence of the archangel, Talbot had to dominate the urge to flee. She wondered if that was something instilled in all demons (unlikely, since Adam seemed so at home there) or if it was just her. There was something wrong with his face. Something that made him look like he wasn’t the person he was pretending to be and it unnerved her.

Was this something that happened to everyone who saw someone they knew possessed by something else?

“Which we wouldn’t have to do if you’d killed the brat,” Adam pointed out before taking another swig from the bottle.

Michael glared at him, the edge of his lip contorted in a subtle gesture that revealed so much rage that Talbot considered that him smiting Adam then and there was a very distinct possibility. Maybe she should let him. Or maybe not, considering that once Adam was gone she’d likely be next on the list.

“Gentlemen, not that I want to quash your entertainment,” she said, in the calmest tone that she could muster. “But I believe that smiting bars full of people and bickering in empty warehouses isn’t going to help our cause.”

They both turned to stare at her with equally furious stares.

“What do you suggest we do then, merchant?” Michael asked, his lips pulling back on a grin that was more of a threat.

“Attacking our enemies directly has obviously failed,” Talbot continued, suppressing a shudder. She couldn’t let them see just how scared he made her. “So I believe it’s time for a more… subtle approach.”

“You think you have a better strategy than me?” Michael asked. His tone was thick with arrogance. “I’ve commanded all the heavenly garrisons; I’ve devastated worlds…”

“And you have all the subtlety of a sledgehammer,” Adam said. “Don’t take it personally. I’m also not the most patient person when it comes to elaborate plans.” He ignored the way Michael glowered at him and took another swig of the bottle before he turned to the other demon. “What do you have in mind, Talbot?”

Talbot smiled at them, the way she smiled at the clients that summoned her right before she bought their souls. Raw strength would do nothing against a couple of powerful, angry, immortal beings hell-bent on destroying the world. But maybe a good con could bring them down.


	19. Chapter 19

“I don’t like it.”

That was exactly the response Meg was waiting for. She’d just thought it would come from Mary or from Sam himself.

What surprised her was that it came from Castiel.

“What exactly is there not to like about it?” she asked him, quirking an eyebrow.

“There’s too many things that could go wrong,” Castiel replied. “Too many risks…”

“Well, I think that’s an advantage. It’ll keep us flexible,” Meg said, with a smirk.

Castiel wasn’t buying it. “Sam will be in a lot of danger. We might not be able to get to him in time, he might even…”

“I’ll do it,” Sam cut him off.

All the gazes turned towards him. He was leaning against one of the shelves, his arms crossed over his chest and when he lifted his head and spoke, his tone was overtly calm.

“I’ll do it,” he repeated. “I’ll take those chances.”

To Meg, that was a good enough answer, but of course the others would need more convincing.

“Sam, you can’t!” Mary said. “There has to be another way…”

“We’ve been breaking our heads trying to find this other way,” Sam pointed out. “Yes, it’s a risky plan but it’s not more so than any of the other ones we’ve tried.”

“No.” Mary shook her head. “It can’t be.”

“Mom…”

“I’m not going to lose both of my boys!”

The declaration came thunderous and forceful. Mary was a head shorter than Sam, but when she planted herself in front of him, she seemed to grow larger and stronger than him. Or maybe it was that Sam had shrunken as a result.

And part of Meg wanted to chastise Mary for not realizing how genius this was, for not picking up on the fact that Adam and Michael were just going to escalate the violence from then on, that they couldn’t hide in that bunker forever, that this was a golden chance they had and they couldn’t pass up on it.

But another part of her… her eyes kept moving towards were Eris was standing, looking at each of them with her brown and blue eyes, a slight frown on her brow as if she was trying to unravel a very complex problem. And Meg couldn’t help but to realize she would also be opposing the plan if it was her daughter being used as bait. It was a thousand times worse, though, because Sam was a very capable hunter, one of the best… but he was still no more than a fragile human.

She would’ve liked to say something about all of it, but then Castiel put a hand on her shoulder.

“We’ll let you to discuss this,” he said, softly. “You already know what I think, Sam. But the decision is ultimately yours.”

Meg turned her chair and follow him and Rowena out of the library and into another of the large halls that spread out of it. Was she ever going to get an idea of how big the bunker was, exactly? It seemed as ever-changing and expanding as the goddamn Hellscape itself.

Rowena passed them by, practically stomping with her pumps on the floor.

“Where are you going?” Meg asked.

“To get supplies, of course,” the witch replied, not stopping and not turning to look at them. “Because Sam is going to convince Mary and we’re all going to go with this suicide plan of yours. So I might as well be ready for it.”

She sounded angry, in the passive-aggressive way that signaled that she knew Meg was right to propose her plan, but she didn’t like it. She wasn’t going to try and oppose it, but she was definitely not happier than Mary was that they were risking her boyfriend like that.

Was Sam her boyfriend? Meg decided they were questions best left unanswered.

“Oh, great. Does that mean I finally get to take something from the armory?” Eris asked, with her eyes suddenly glimmering.

“No, don’t… I’ll come with you,” Castiel said when he realized Eris was several steps ahead of him already.

Meg wanted to talk to Eris so badly. The dream she had was still fresh in her mind, but there were simply too many other things she needed to deal with first. She turned her chair left and followed Rowena into the supply room. She cursed at the Men of Letters when she had to stop and teleport herself inside it. Were they incapable of building a single room that didn’t have steps?

“Talk to me, witch,” she said as Rowena started grabbing at the different bottles and jars on the shelves. “You’re not happy about this.”

“Of course I’m not happy about it!” Rowena snapped. “I just died yesterday and now I’m probably going to have to do it again. But oh, do we get a saying about all of this? Do we get asked if we want to involve ourselves in this business that’s really not personal to any of us?”

“Well, it’s personal to me. If I don’t stop those guys, they’re going to kill my daughter.”

“Not to mention your husband,” Rowena said, imprinting a little sarcastic tone on the last word.

“Castiel is not my… we’re not… we will literally live forever, if we survive this. Marriage is for humans…” Meg caught herself and shut up. Rowena side-eyed her with a smirk, which meant that getting Meg babbling was exactly what she’d been trying to do. She stopped, looked at the ceiling and then back down at Rowena. “You could excuse yourself. I’m sure Sam wouldn’t ask you to come with him after yesterday’s fiasco.”

Rowena scoffed. She opened a jar and held it to her nose to sniff its contents.

“It’s become personal since they tried to kill me,” she declared.

There was fury in her tone and Meg had no doubt in her mind that she was very much angry at Adam for hurting her and that he would definitely come to regret it. But she had the feeling that was only part of the truth.

“Well, whatever your reason is, I’m glad you’re coming along,” Meg said. “I’m sure Sam appreciates it too.”

Rowena put the jar back in the shelf and stared daggers at Meg, who simply smiled.

“Let’s make a deal,” Rowena proposed. “I don’t talk to you about Castiel and you don’t talk to me about Sam.”

“Fair enough.” She leaned back a little in her chair. She licked her lips. Rowena was old, she had been all over the world. Maybe she had heard something about the woods in Meg’s mind and its pomegranate trees. Or maybe some sort of spell that could help her memory or…

She realized that wasn’t the reason she was thinking about telling her this. She just needed to talk to someone about this or she was going to burst.

“Hey…” she started, but before she could continue, Jack walked inside the supply room and well, now she couldn’t speak. Whatever she said in his presence would undoubtedly make it back to Eris.

Jack ignored the both of them as he too started picking jars and bottles, with the same confidence as Rowena, if not with the same care: he would just pick one and hold it over his arm while he reached for the next. He had a frown of concentration, as if he knew exactly what he was looking for and he wasn’t going to let anybody slow him down.

Rowena noticed too, because she walked up to him and glanced at the ingredients he was taking.

“Those are some very powerful things you’re taking, kid,” she commented, tilting her head. “What are you cooking?”

Jack looked up at her and opened his mouth, hesitating.

“Just… some protection spells,” he said. “I don’t have my powers, but I can still be useful.”

Rowena frowned. “Well, those are some very weird protections you’re planning on putting up. I don’t think…”

“I’ve tried this spell before and it works,” Jack informed her, in a very petulant tone of voice. “I don’t need your advice. Excuse me.”

Rowena gasped, offended, as the Nephilim simply walked outside of the supply room with his arms full of spell ingredients.

“The arrogance of that child,” she protested, before she turned her attention back to her own supplies. “How are you even raising him?”

Meg didn’t tell her that she wasn’t part of Jack’s education. She was a little more concerned about him lying so transparently.

She found him in his room. He’d left the door ajar, so she could see that he’d spread the ingredients all over his bed. He was frantically muttering to himself words she couldn’t hear or understand, but she had the slight impression they were Enochian.

“Jack?” she called out.

He straightened his back, almost dropping the jar that he had in his hand. He managed to keep his grip on it, but only just.

“You startled me,” he said.

It was odd. He’d always sounded surprised whenever he spoke in the past, but now there was another undertone to his words.

Irritation, Meg thought. Almost anger.

“Sorry about that,” she said, with a shrug. “I just had a question about your spell.”

Jack huffed but immediately put on a smile and turned towards Meg.

“What do you want to know?”

Oh, so that was how they were going to play it?

“It’s not really defensive, is it?” she asked him, point blank.

“I don’t know what…”

“You need to learn to lie better,” Meg interrupted him.

Jack bit the inside of his cheek and looked away. The frustration emanated of him almost like a tangible aura.

“We have to stop Michael, at any price. That’s why you’re willing to put Sam in danger.”

Meg shook her head. “That is not…”

“What I’m trying to do won’t put anyone in danger, except myself,” Jack interrupted her. “And if I succeed…”

He let the words hang in the air, letting Meg fill in the blanks by herself.

Meg stared at him. There were very little arguments she could make to that, but she tried anyway.

“I take it Sam and Cas wouldn’t like it.”

“No. But you agree with me.”

“I do, but if you die…”

“They’ll be fine,” Jack guaranteed her. “Sam will have Dean back and Cas has Eris. And you. They don’t need me.”

Maybe Meg should have read all those child psychology books that Eris had mentioned. Perhaps she would’ve had a better an answer than what she said:

“I’m not sure they would see it that way.”

“It doesn’t matter how they would see it, because you won’t tell on me.”

Meg clutched at the armrests of her chair. She didn’t want to just admit it, but… it was pretty clear that he was more perceptive than she had pegged him for.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, kid,” she said in the end, resigned.

“I do,” Jack said.

And even though Meg had a hard time believing that, she swallowed her doubts. Now was definitely the worst time to be hesitating.

 

* * *

 

Sam called them all to the library half an hour later to inform them they were going to go ahead with Meg’s plans after all. Mary remained by the wall, her eyes fixed on her shoes, clearly very unhappy about this development. She had not wasted any time telling Sam exactly what she thought about it.

“Would you really go out there, unarmed, to face an archangel and the biggest demon?”

“For Dean? Mom, I would do a lot worse. I have done a lot worse,” Sam replied, as softly as he could.

Mary had argued some more (about how this plan was reckless, about how she wasn’t willing to allow it, about what would Dean think about it) but in the end, she’d resigned herself to the simple fact that Sam wasn’t about to change his mind.

Dean was in this mess because he had said yes to Michael to rescue him. It was only fair that Sam risked it all to rescue his older brother. Dean would be saying the exact same things that Mary was saying to him right now, he was acutely aware of it.

But he wouldn’t convince him to back down either.

In the end, Mary had shaken her head, her eyes red from all the unshed tears.

“You stubborn…”

She couldn’t continue, because Sam had wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in for a tight hug.

“I know, mom. I’m sorry. But I have to do this for Dean.”

And it wasn’t just for Dean. It was for all the people that he’d lead back there, promising them a world where they wouldn’t be fugitives anymore. All the people that he’d failed and had to lay on a pyre the day before. All those strangers that have died in a bar just because Michael and Adam happened to be in a bad mood.

All those wrongs were on him and it was time he made them right.

As he spoke with all those thoughts running through his mind, he saw the same concern Mary’s face in both Castiel and Jack. Meg remained calm, because of course she wasn’t going to show her emotions, but Sam would’ve bet she was satisfied she’d managed to convince him.

“Anyone who doesn’t want to help me doesn’t have to,” Sam concluded, his eyes turning towards Rowena. “That means you.”

Rowena lifted her gaze at him. Something flashed across her face, a mixture of emotions that made Sam shudder. They’d been through a lot and they’d said a lot of things when they were alone. Now he wasn’t sure any of them had meant the same thing to her as they had to him. After all…

A second later, a smile appeared on Rowena’s lips.

“Of course I’m coming along,” she said, with the same nonchalant voice as if Sam had invited her for a stroll or for dinner.

“So am I,” said Jack, immediately. “Don’t try to convince me otherwise, Sam.”

Sam wasn’t going to. He wanted to, but he already knew it’d be useless.

“And me,” Eris added. “Adam was my mistake. And also, it would suck if you died.”

Sam chuckled. It was amazing how she could say such a Meg thing in such a Castiel tone.

“Very well, then. Let’s get to it.”

The first thing he needed was a case. Nothing complicated, maybe a haunting that could be solved simply with a salt-and-burn or maybe a werewolf, nothing demon or angel related, and preferably nearby.

Mary found one and it surprised Sam a little that she would even tell him about it.

“Council Grove, a woman falls down the stairs and breaks her legs. She said she was home alone that night and that she heard children laughing in her house.”

“Good enough for me,” Sam said.

It was merely a three-hours’ drive. He packed everything that he would need for a short hunt: his duffle bag with an overnight change, the EMF meter, a few weapons in the trunk. Not too many and too valuable ones. Ditching the car was part of the plan after all. Dean would definitely not be happy about what he had to do to it.

He would have time to apologize to him once he’d rescued him.

His family and friends, what was left of them, came to say goodbye to him at the entrance of the bunker. It was a nice gesture. There was a distinct possibility that, as carefully (or as recklessly, as Cas kept reminding them) as they had planned all this, he wouldn’t be seeing them again.

“We’ll be there as soon as the call is made,” Mary promised him, after hugging him.

“I know you will be.”

The real question was if that would be soon enough. Well, he would have to trust them.

Rowena tucked a hex bag between his shirt and his jacket, right over his heart, and then left her hand linger over his chest for a second longer than was necessary. Sam wanted to close his eyes and soak in the warmth of her touch, but the others were watching. And they had no time to waste.

She knew this too.

“Be careful, giant,” she said, simply, before she stepped behind.

Sam smiled at her and didn’t tell her what he was thinking. They were far past carefulness.

“Cas…”

Castiel didn’t say anything. He reached for him and pulled him for a hug, so tight Sam could almost feel his bones creaking under the angel’s grasp. They didn’t exchange platitudes or promises that they knew would be empty. But it was still nice to have his friend support.

“You’ll take care of them won’t you?” Sam asked, softly, so no one else would hear them.

“Of course.”

He let go and Sam stepped back and extended his arms towards Jack. He stared at him for a second, as if he was surprised or not quite sure what to do. But finally, he got the gist: he stepped forwards and let Sam embrace him. Even then, it took a few seconds before he lifted his arms and hugged him back.

“Don’t be afraid,” Sam told him.

“I’m not.” When they separated, Jack showed him a confident smile that Sam was certain was trying to imitate Dean’s. “We’re gonna get the son of a bitch.”

And that was definitely meant to emulate Dean. That was exactly what Dean would’ve said. Jack was trying to console him in this simple way and Sam could only smile and pat him in the cheek to thank him. He was simply too overwhelmed to speak, but he was thankful.

That made it easier to forget just how scared he actually was. Not of being hurt, no, he had been hurt many times in his life. But of what could mean for him if he had to sacrifice Dean in the end.

Eris was standing next to Meg’s chair to the side. Sam didn’t know exactly how to address them. Eris had been a mostly silent present in the bunker and Sam didn’t know if she actually liked him at all. Or if she had ever even spared a thought for him. She always seemed so distant with anyone except perhaps Meg and Castiel, like she didn’t have the time or the patience for them… and that’s why it surprised him when she stepped forwards and also gave him a hug. It was quick and a little awkward and maybe she did it because everyone else had rather than because she felt like it.

Sam appreciated it nonetheless.

“We’ll see you soon,” Eris said softly when she let go.

“I’m sure,” Sam replied.

He turned towards Meg.

“I’m not hugging you,” she said quickly.

Sam laughed.

“I didn’t expect you to.”

“I’m also not doing the mushy feelings thing,” she continued, raising her chin with pride. “My plan is good. If you die, it’ll because you fucked it up and I hope no one blames me for it.”

She looked every inch a queen, with her legs crossed and her hands resting at her sides, as if her sole presence could turn her chair into a throne. She handled herself with a dignity that not even Crowley had had before.

“Well, at least you’re not trying to kill me directly like you used to,” Sam pointed out.

Meg’s lips curved up in a smirk.

“Good times, huh?” she asked. “Even then, I liked you better than Dean. So… I guess I would be a little sorry if we have to burn your oversized body tomorrow.”

That was positively kind coming from her. Sam patted her on the shoulder as he passed her by towards the car, because there was nothing left for him to do or say. He threw his duffle bag on the passenger seat and sat behind the wheel. The car felt strangely empty without Dean there with him, without him blasting his music or cracking stupid jokes. Sam felt his brother’s absence like a missing limb. All the friends in the universe couldn’t replace him.

He still allowed himself one last look at them all standing outside of the bunker before he turned the engine on and drove away.

 

* * *

 

Twelve hours later, he was climbing the wall of Council Grove’s St. Adelaide Cemetery. The EMF had gone off the charts the moment he’d turned it on inside the house and the victim had reported cold spots, objects moving for no reason, the whole shebang. Some typing at the computer in his motel later, some digging and burning later, the ghost was dealt with and the case was closed. It was probably one of the easiest ghosts he’d ever got rid of, but that was just fine.

The idea was that he needed to be away from the bunker for what was going to happen next.

He shook the dirt from his clothes and checked the time on his phone. It was four o’clock in the morning. The night was dark and warm above his head, and he took a second to look up at it, at the few stars he could see among the trees. Once again, he thought of Dean, about the comments he would’ve made or just…

He threw the shovel on the trunk and got inside the car. It was time.

For half an hour after he left the town behind, nothing happened. He drove down a dark, empty dark road, accompanied by nothing but the rumble of the engine. As he left behind signs indicating the distances between towns and telephone posts, his hands started tightening around the wheel, his back muscles tensing up.

Why wasn’t she there? Meg had been very clear about what was supposed to happen next. Had the other demon received the call? What if Adam and Michael had discovered the ploy? What if…?

And just when his panic was peaking, he saw her. She stood in the middle of the road, a shadowy figure in the headlights, the Impala barreling towards her fast, too fast…

Sam took a deep breath and did the only thing he could do: he brusquely turned the wheel to the side. The tires creaked against the asphalt and for a second or two before they completely lost contact with the ground. The world spun around madly for a second or two, Sam’s body pushed and pulled beyond his control. His head hit against something, sending a jolt of pain through him and blackening his vision.

A din of metal bending and glasses breaking. One last uncontrollable shake.

He sat immobile, blinking to keep a hot, sticky liquid falling over his eyes. It took him a second to understand that it was his own blood dripping down his split forehead. His neck and shoulder ached as well and his legs trembled slightly, the shock of adrenaline keeping him wide awake. He grunted as he reached for the door handle.

His body collapsed on the asphalt. As he tried to pathetically scramble to his feet, he heard the calm steps of a pair of high heeled boots coming at him.

The demon grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him up, ignoring his pained gasp as she pushed him against the crashed car. She was possessing a small brunette woman and there was a smile in her full, blood red lips.

“Hello, Sam. Long time no see.”

She spoke with a soft English accent and a deceptively cheerful tone. Sam’s vision was still blurry, but he tried to focus it on her. Of course, that was stupid. He wouldn’t be able to tell who this demon was anyway when she was wearing a stolen face.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

A small fist with the bluntness of a hammer impacted against his face, sending another wave of pain through his already foggy mind.

The demon was grinning wide when he focused on her again.

“Of course, you wouldn’t remember me,” she said. “But don’t worry. We’ll have plenty of time to make re-acquaintances.”

The fury in her eyes was like a red flag waving right in front of his face. This demon had a personal vendetta against him, she hated him. Sam couldn’t be sure why (he and Dean had made life harder for a lot of demons), but it didn’t matter. The doubt was already creeping in his brain. What if she had lied to Meg? What if this was a double-betrayal and she took him to Adam without making the call? What if…?

He didn’t have time to think about it. The demon turned him around and slammed his face against the roof of the car before letting go of him..

Sam fell down on the hard concrete. A part of him was screaming to stand up, stand up and fight with all of his might, grab the boot that had come down on his throat and was pressing down, keep going until he no longer could.

But the stars above were spinning and crashing down, becoming a whirlwind of darkness that obscured his vision. His entire body was aching and heavy, so heavy, and the demon wouldn’t let go… it was easier if he just…

With a sigh that was almost of relief, Sam let his hands fall to his sides and surrendered to the nothingness.


	20. Chapter 20

He came to face down on the dirt. His head, his arms, his entire self, screamed out in pain when he pushed himself up, slowly, keeping his lips tight together. He knew there was someone watching him and he wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction to hear him scream.

He still had to take a second or two while his head settled back down on his shoulders, blinking at the rising sun as his vision refocused so he could take in his surroundings. He was still on his knees and didn’t dare to stand up in case his legs couldn’t hold him.

He was in a woody, isolated area. Trees formed a circle around him and a little to the left, he caught a glimpse of clear, still water. A lake of some sort. Somewhere where people wouldn’t hear him scream.

He quickly patted his chest. The hex bag Rowena had given him was still there, but his relief at that was very short-lived.

“Well, good morning, sleeping beauty,” said a voice behind him. A few steps followed that and Adam came into his field of vision.

He was wearing a large black coat despite the warm spring weather, perhaps to cover the fact that his body had to be badly damaged. Sam had to deduce so judging by the state of his face. The holy oil had burned at least half of it, and the tissue still appeared reddened and wrinkled. Like the scars were at least a few years instead of a few days old.

It gave his younger brother’s a grotesque aspect, especially when he smiled at him.

“How did you sleep?”

“Adam,” Sam started. He felt a knot coming up his throat, but he swallowed and forced himself to keep on speaking. “I’m…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Adam interrupted him. He shook his hand a small knife slid down his sleeve, directly into his hand. He began twirling and turning it, as if it was the most interesting object in the world as he spoke: “You’re sorry you left me in the Cage to rot with two very pissed off archangels. I’m sure you had some grand, world-saving reason to do it. I don’t care. I’m gonna kill you all the same.”

Sam gaze to the side. The other demon, the one that had ambushed on the road, was standing to the side, immobile and silent. Her face betrayed no emotion, but Sam saw that she also had something hanging down in her hand…

Adam’s hand descended upon him and grabbed a handful of his hair, pulling it fast and hard. Sam yelped, more out of surprise than pain, but any further protest died in his lips when the cold edge of the knife kissed the skin of his neck. His heat beat harder, and he was certain Adam could hear it, from his chest, from the blood pulsing through his veins.

“But first, I’m going to make sure you suffer,” he added, almost in a whisper. His blue eyes had a manic glimmer in them. “I’m going to make you _beg me_ to kill you because it’ll be better than everything I’m about to do.”

Sam took a deep breath, forcing himself to keep calm. He’d seen death coming at him many times, but it was no less chilling the fourteenth time than the first. He just needed to remind himself that this was not going to be the end.

He had to trust that.

“Okay,” he said, sighing softly. “Okay, I understand. You have to kill me. That’s… that’s fair. But listen…”

The fist impacted on the left side of his head, knocking him to the ground once more. His entire skull vibrated with the force of the strike and for a few terrifying seconds, Sam was certain that he was going to pass out again. He was trying to sit up again when Adam landed on top of him, his body pressing him down to the ground. He grabbed Sam by the lapels of his shirt and pulled him up so their faces were mere inches away now.

“You have nothing to say to me!”

He punctuated that with another punch, this time straight to Sam’s cheek. It was like being hit with a rock or with a brick and Sam had to make an effort to turn his head to look at Adam again. His jaw hurt from how hard he was clenching it and there was a darkness at the edge of his vision that threatened to take him under. But not yet. They were just getting started.

“I’m sorry,” he said, despite knowing that this would only enrage Adam further. “I’m sorry that we left you there. I’m sorry that we let Michael take you to begin with. We… we thought we were doing the best we could given the circumstances. Now I know… we could have done better.”

His teeth clattered against each other, cutting the edge of his tongue when Adam hit him under the chin.

“You’re not sorry,” he said. The almost manic tone of his voice had lessened and now he sounded a thousand times worse. He sounded hurt, and a lot more like the young boy that Sam had thought he knew. “But you will be.”

Sam tasted the bitterness of the blood flooding his mouth and spat it to the side. Adam’s eyes were something fierce as he lifted the knife on top of him, ready to strike down…

“Glad to see that this is all over…”

Adam froze and Sam shuddered underneath him.

Hearing that voice shook him to his very core, because he’d spent months thinking, obsessing about hearing it again. And now he was there… but not quite.

The man that walked into the clearing wasn’t his brother, even if he was using his face. Everything from his clothes to his demeanor, to the way he recoiled with his nose wrinkled when he saw Sam, as if he’d found something disgusting stuck to his shoe, was not Dean’s. It broke Sam’s heart to see it, but he couldn’t even utter a word before the archangel began screaming:

“What’s going on here? She said you’d already finished with him!”

“What?” Adam asked, his eyes opening wide. He turned to the other demon, who still stood away from them.

She raised both her hands as if to protest her innocence. One of them was empty, but the other clutched around a cellphone with its screen black.

“My bad!” she said, but there was nothing jovial or calm about her tone. Even her smile reflected a sudden fear, especially when Adam stood up and stalked towards her. His hand closed around her wrist brusquely and wrestled the phone out her fingers, throwing it to the ground. He stepped on it, crushing it to the ground with a sound of broken glass and metal.

“Do you mind being more fucking careful?” he groaned.

“Won’t happen again,” the other demon promised her.

Adam let go of her with a huff and turned towards Michael.

“Get out of here,” he said. “I’ll be done when I’m done and then you can come and kick his body if you want to.”

Michael remained where he was. His eyes were open wide and his arms laid languidly to his sides.

“Why are you still here?” Adam asked him.

“I can’t go.”

“Well, you’re welcome to watch the show if you want, but I thought that was precisely what you were trying to avoid…”

“I can’t go!” Michael repeated, his voice rising with fury. “He… he did something…”

Adam lowered his eyes at Sam and noticed how he was clutching his chest. With a scream of fury, he pulled Sam’s hand away and grabbed at the hex bag, now perfectly visible.

“Oh, very smart!” he said, squeezing the bag in his hand as he stood up. “You’re just prolonging the inevitable, you know…?”

His voice trailed off. His face contorted in a mask of pain and his mouth opened to let out a gasping, wheezing cough, paralyzed as well by the spell.

Just as the same time, the soft rumble of a motorized chair’s engine echoed through the woods. A female voice to his right chanted words in a strange, ancient language, making the air around him crackle with magic.

They all appeared at the same time, moving through the trees with sigil. The wards on the trees’ trunks glowed golden as they stepped inside the circle they had chosen to be their battlefield. Castiel carried the spear, like they’d agreed. Mary, Meg and Jack were all armed with angel blades, holding them up menacingly, refusing to break eye contact with either Adam or Michael. The only one who wasn’t armed in any way was Eris, but Sam had the impression that, like Rowena standing right outside the circle the spells formed, she didn’t really need a weapon.

The archangel stared at all of them, his face contorting in a gesture of pure fury as he understood what had happened.

“You…” he said, turning his face towards Talbot.

“Really?” Adam’s tone of voice revealed that he was genuinely hurt, or maybe it was just that he sounded like his throat was being ripped apart by the violent coughs he couldn’t hold back. “You… traitor…”

Talbot moved across the meadow to stand closer to Meg.

“Not quite. And don’t take it personal. It’s just that I already have a queen.”

Adam coughed again and grabbed at his own wrist, but as much as he pressed and growled, he couldn’t force himself to let go of the hex bag. His knees trembled and he went down, which Sam used as a distraction to stand up and take a few steps back towards his friends.

“Very smart, setting up your own little trap,” Michael congratulated them. “It won’t hold me forever, though.”

“We don’t need it to,” Castiel said. He twirled the spear in his hand and lunged forwards.

And that was all the signal they needed. Meg, Talbot, Eris and Jack all charged towards the archangel at the same time.

Mary threw an angel blade at Sam, who caught it quickly in mid-air. They both moved towards Adam, but weakened as he was, the demon still had his powers: he raised his hands and an invisible fist hit Sam on the stomach, knocking the air out of him and sending him flying towards the nearest tree. He hit it with his back, and he couldn’t help the shout of pain that escaped his lips. To his left, he heard his mother scream, but he couldn’t do anything as he scrambled to his feet…

Someone grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, shaking him around like a ragged doll. Sam looked up, blinking and trying to catch his breath from the intense pain on his side (broken ribs? Splintered lungs?).

His brother’s face hovered over him.

“You just couldn’t stop meddling, could you?” he growled.

Sam could still hear Rowena’s canticle, Adam’s coughing that had become a furious roar, his friends shouting each other’s names…

The hit in his face disoriented him enough that it all went quiet at the same time, his ears ringing as the blood rushed through his veins. The second hit descended on his nose, lightning bolts flashing behind his closed eyes.

Despite the pain, he forced himself to open them. When Michael’s fist descended again, he raised his hand and grabbed the archangel’s wrist — Dean’s wrist.

“Stop,” he croaked. He coughed, spat a mass of blood and teeth into the ground and insisted: “Stop.”

Michael’s face froze for a moment, but then his lips contorted into a smile.

“Would you look at that?” he commented, as if a curious idea had just come over him. “I spent all this time thinking that you would be the one thing that would get Dean to expel me…” He raised his hands, but instead of hitting him, he simply unbuttoned his jacket and methodically rolled up his sleeves. “Maybe your brother just doesn’t love you enough to fight me, Sammy.”

“No,” Sam protested. He cleared his throat and even though his lungs burned with every breath he took, he forced himself to speak louder. “No. Dean, I know you’re in there. Dean, please…”

The only reply he got was Michael’s cruel cackle. He rubbed his hands together.

“I’m tired of you,” he said. He pressed his open palm against Sam’s forehead, still with that manic smile frozen in his lips. It felt warm and dry and Sam tried to shrink away, but there was nowhere to go: the earth beneath him wouldn’t budge and the weight of Michael’s body wouldn’t let him move or fight back. There was no spark in Dean’s green eyes as he spoke: “Goodbye, Sam.”

Sam didn’t close his eyes. He was proud enough to do at least that, despite the bitter taste and the anger in his chest. He’d fought to save his brother and the world and he’d failed at both. He could only hope that once he was gone, Castiel and the others could keep fighting.

He waited for the light, for the heat of the archangel smiting the life out of him… and it didn’t come.

Michael was frozen in place, his hand still stretched towards Sam. His face was blank, all the glee and the fury that had been there a moment before gone entirely.

“No,” he muttered, in a flat tone. His head whipped to the side, as if someone had slapped him, and then back towards Sam. “It’s over. No.”

His hand trembled and he had to grab it with the other one, to force it to stay in place. His nose wrinkled up in a snarl.

“No!” he screamed again. “You leave him alone!”

Dean.

Sam knew it. He knew it with an absolute certainty that came from deep inside his guts, from the bottom of his heart.

“Dean,” he called him and struggled to sit up. “Dean!”

Michael’s body fell to the side and rolled away from him. He held unto a tree, his nails sinking deep in the bark, slowly pulling himself up.

Ignoring the pain that scream through every inch of himself, Sam also stood up and glanced quickly around the clearing. Mary was on the other side, her head languid over her chest. Eris, Talbot and Meg were next to Adam, all of them pointing him with their blades, while he coughed up puffs of black smoke now and them. Cas was nearby, the spear firm in his hands, and watching the brothers closely, indecision and fear reflected on his face.

Sam turned his attention back to Michael. Back to his brother.

“Dean, fight him!” he urged him. His leg gave out underneath him (when had he injured it?) and he stumbled forwards, but managed to keep up straight. “Dean…”

Michael’s face whipped again and when he spoke, his voice was again Dean’s.

“Sam,” he muttered, still holding his right hand down, as if to prevent himself from raising it. “It’s ok. I got him.”

The relief Sam felt when he heard this was too brief. Dean turned his attention to Castiel, to the spear in his hand.

“Finish it,” he said.

“No,” Sam muttered, terror freezing him in his place. “Dean, no!”

“Do it now, Cas!”

“Cas, wait!”

Dean growled and bent over himself.

“I can’t hold him forever!” he screamed. “Cas, kill him!”

“Dean,” Castiel muttered. There was an infinite sadness in his eyes as he held the spear up. “I’m sorry.”

“No!” Sam screamed. He tried to move, but his legs once again gave out. He ended face down on the dirt, pushing his hands against the ground, desperately trying to stand up.

Dean wasn’t looking at Castiel. His eyes were fixed on Sam, calm and peaceful. The peace of a man who had accepted his fate.

And Sam wished to plead with him, he wish to tell him to wait, to hold on a little longer, that they would find a way, another way, _any_ other way.

But they both knew that wasn’t true.

“Bye, Sammy,” Dean said.

Castiel raised the spear, the point aimed directly at Dean’s throat…

It happened so fast that Sam wasn’t sure he saw right.

Jack came running from the left and tackled Dean down, pushing him out of the spear’s trajectory. It sank on the bark tree where Dean’s head had been a second before, its handle trembling and shaking, but Sam’s attention was entirely set on Jack and Dean, who rolled over the dirt with grunts and shouts. When they stopped, Jack’s hands were both on Dean’s temple, his eyes glowing unnatural and silver.

“Get out of him!” he ordered.

Dean’s mouth opened wide and a beam of light shot out of it, the high-pitched wheeze of an angel in flight invaded the clearing. Dean’s body shook and then went limp, while Michael’s disembodied form hovered over them, blindingly white.

Sam wanted to scream his brother’s name again, but he didn’t have time.

The coughing behind him turned into something far sinister, far more unexpected: an uncontrollable cackle, as if the person emitting found whatever was happening hilarious.

“Yes!” Adam exclaimed.

The beam of light dipped down, bathing the demon’s body, still lying face down on the ground.

“Get back!” Meg ordered somewhere.

Talbot, Eris and her moved to try and get away from Adam, but not fast enough.

The demon knelt at first, like a knight before his king or like a monk in mid-prayer. Then, slowly, he rose to his feet. His expression was vacant as he lowered his eyes to his hand, to the hex bag that Rowena had tricked him into holding.

“Children. You’re all just… children,” Adam said, but it was no longer his voice. It was Michael’s.

The hex bag caught fire and somewhere in the woods, Rowena let out a shrill of pain that chilled Sam to the bone. Michael turned around, to where the two demons and Eris were standing. He raised his hand in Eris direction.

Sam felt around the grass for his angel blade, desperate, while Castiel raised the spear again:

“No!”

The lightning bolt flashed bright in Michael’s fingers before Sam’s hands closed around the blade’s tilt, before Dean’s head rose, his expression confused and dazed, before Jack and Castiel charged against the archangel. Even if they had been anticipating the attack, there was simply nothing any of them could have done to prevent it, not in the state they were currently in.

Sam knew this. He still jumped to his feet and joined Castiel and Jack in their career towards Michael.

With a flicker of his wrist, Michael threw the bolt…

It hit Meg square in the stomach.

Later, Sam would deduce that the effect of Rowena’s wards had vanished, that Meg had teleported and made an effort to stand in front of her daughter. Later, his brain would have a moment to adjust and understand what he was seeing and why Castiel let out that very inhuman sound, that growl that was more like that of a wounded animal than an angel.

But in that one terrible instant, all he could do was watch as the Queen of Hell fell down, soundlessly, fragile and limp.

Eris’ eyes were open wide. She held the blade up, but it was as if she’d forgotten what to do with it. Her lower lip trembled as she lowered her eyes to Meg’s body.

“Mom?”

Michael raised his hand again.

Jack grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him around, swinging at his face with the blade. Castiel did the same on the other side, the spear spinning in his hands, his face deformed in a mask of rage. Michael leaned over, avoiding both of them with ease, his hand glowing as another bolt started forming in it.

Sam took a step forwards, thinking about what would be the best way to distract him (he needed to give Cas an opening to attack, a way for him to get to Michael’s) when he heard Dean’s gravelly voice calling for him.

“Sam… Sammy…”

“Dean?”

His brother was leaning against the same trunk where had been ready to die just moments before. He still was pale and his legs trembled as he attempted to get up, but other than that, he was mostly unharmed.

“Dean!” Sam ran towards and grabbed his arm, holding him up against himself. “Hold on, don’t move…”

Castiel stumbled backwards, still with the spear in his hand.

“Get him out of here!” he shouted, before he once again charged against Michael.

Sam hesitated. He couldn’t leave his friends; they would die at Michael’s hands for certain. On the other hand, Dean was weak, Mary was still unconscious, God only knew what’d happened to Rowena, and Meg…

Eris had knelt next to her. She’d cradled Meg’s head and placed it over her lap. There was shock still in her blue and brown eyes, as if she simply couldn’t understand what she was seeing. As if she couldn’t process what’d happened. Talbot had her by the shoulder and was pulling softly, trying to get her out. She said something, but Eris didn’t seem to be listening. Her hands brushed off Meg’s hair, as if she was trying to gently wake her up from a deep slumber.

It broke Sam’s heart a little.

It also made him understand that Castiel was going to do everything in his power not to survive this battle.

Michael turned around, the back of his hand slapping against Castiel’s face with such force that it sent him flying away from him, crashing loudly against another one of the trees. He turned to Jack and grabbed him by the wrist before Jack could plunge the blade into his chest

“Haven’t you learned already?” the archangel said. “You can’t defeat me. Much as you try, you are nothing to me, but you’ve annoyed me long enough, so I think…”

“Shut up!” Eris shouted. Her voice came off broken, like she was barely holding back the tears, but still clear enough that Michael turned his gaze towards her.

“You’re telling me to shut up, you pathetic…?”

He couldn’t continue, because Eris was simply so disinterested in listening to him that she did what Sam was certain she’d been wanting to do since the bolt had hit Meg: she opened her mouth… and screamed.

Sam had listened to a lot of screams in his life. Banshees and ghosts, souls tortured in hell and angels letting their power grow, victims as they were being ripped by heartless monsters, screams that haunted his nightmares when he closed his eyes at night.

And none of them were anything like this. None of them invaded every inch of the air around him like a physical force, like a wall, pushing him back, none had been strident enough to make the earth under his feet shake. He and Dean flinched at the same time, covering their ears while Michael stepped back, dragging Jack with him, trying to put as much physical distance between him and Eris as he could.

As if that could save them from listening to her. As if that scream couldn’t be heard around the world, and on Heaven and Hell and every other realm of existence as well.

Cracks appeared on Michael’s skin, in his forehead and cheeks that burst open and bled. The strain of containing the archangel and resisting Eris’ attack was proving too much for Adam’s body this time. Yet, Michael persisted, still grabbing Jack by the wrist while he tried and failed to move closer to Eris, like her scream was a hurricane that kept him away from her, that he needed to push against with all his might to even take a step.

Dean’s lips moved, but Eris’ scream drown out his words. Sam still understood what his brother meant when he gestured towards the spear, that had landed close enough to them.

In the moment it took them to lean over and grab it, four hands over one weapon, Jack did something. Sam wasn’t sure what it was, but his eyes and skin were aglow with power, and Michael let go of him as if his touch burned him.

Jack wasted no time: he swiped his blade up, across Michael’s neck. The wound wouldn’t kill him, but it did leave an opening from where white hot grace began gushing. Jack opened his mouth and…

Sam and Dean exchanged a look, nodded at each other and ran forwards.

The tip of the spear cut clean through flesh and muscle. The brothers had made sure to aim at the heart and they didn’t stop pushing until the handle was halfway inside Michael’s body… Adam’s body. The body that had belonged to their brother, then to the monster their brother had become because of them.

Jack threw his head backwards, a soft silver light extinguishing on his lips. Adam’s body stiffened and trembled, the last traces of life escaping from it quietly.

Or maybe it was that Sam’s eardrum were still reeling from Eris’ scream. No, he realized when they let go of the spear. There really was no sound in the clearing as it all ended.

Except for Eris’ inconsolable sobbing.

There was something grotesque about Adam lying face down on the ground, still and dead, with the spear handle sticking out from his back. There was no blood, though Sam suspected that when they tried to remove the weapon, it would come gushing out all at once. That idea made him nauseous and he looked away.

He would get used to the weight of that regret with time. As he always did. He would carry it with him, just like he carried all the other deaths: Kevin, Jess, Dad…

Dean leaned heavily against him, like Sam was the only thing keeping him on his feet.

“You okay?” Sam asked him.

“Yeah,” Dean said, weakly. “You?”

Sam pulled him closer, wrapping his arms tight around him, letting the fear and the worries and the doubts that he would see his brother again melt away in that single moment of relief. Dean hugged him back, so close and so strong that Sam suspected he couldn’t believe it either.

Once again, against all sorts of impossible odds, they’d made it. They were together again.

That was all that really mattered.

Sam allowed himself an extra second to believe that before Dean let go of him with a pat on his cheek. His green eyes were heavy with exhaustion that slowly turned into confusion while they both stared at the battlefield.

Jack had knelt next to Mary and was placing two fingers on her forehead. Mary’s eyes fluttered open delicately, looking around in confusion.

“What…?” she muttered. She looked up at her sons and her expression became alarmed for a second before she turned to Sam and realized that if he was calm, that meant… “Dean?”

Dean’s eyes glimmered softly while he forced a smile on his lips. “Hi, mom.”

Mary jumped to her feet and ran towards him, lassoing her arms around his neck. Dean closed his eyes and pulled him close while Sam turned his attention back to Jack.

“How did you do that? I thought…”

“I took Michael’s grace before you killed him,” Jack replied with a shrug. “It seems to have restored my powers.”

Sam blinked at him. That was… it was a better news than he’d dared to hope for.

“Are you sure?” he asked, placing a hand on Jack’s shoulder.

Jack looked down at his hands for a moment. He opened them and closed them again, as if he was trying to feel something in them. He raised his gaze at Sam and smiled softly.

“Yes. I don’t feel weak anymore.”

Sam squeezed Jack’s shoulder for a moment before another sound distracted him. It was a person groaning and moving through the trees, clearly not caring too much if anyone heard her. He was relieved to see Rowena small figure appeared to his left. She looked like a hot mess, with leaves and branches tangled in her fiery red hair and her dress and cape covered in dirt and mud, holding her grimoire tight against her chest with hands full of broken nails. But other than that, she seemed unharmed. She stared at the Winchesters, looking more exasperated than anything else.

“Well, I’m glad you survived,” she said, her voice heavy with sarcasm.

Sam wanted to laugh. He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and spin her around and laugh like nothing in the world was wrong for a while.

But everybody was staring at them.

And also, it would feel inappropriate to laugh when Eris was still crying loudly on the other side of the clearing.

Castiel had got up and walked to her. He was hugging her, but Eris was rigid, still kneeling next to Meg’s body and refusing to move or let go of her. The tears keep streaming down her cheeks and her shoulders shook with every new sob that climbed up her throat.

“Eris…” Castiel whispered. “We have to…”

“No,” Eris replied.

Castiel breathed in deep. He was also crying, quieter than his daughter, his eyes red with tears that he was holding back for some reason. Talbot stood behind the family, confused and lost, like a knight that had seen her queen fall and now wasn’t quite sure what to do.

“Oh, dear,” Rowena muttered, stepping closer to the little microcosm of grief that they formed. “Oh, no.”

“She was never supposed to come back here in the first place,” a deep, calm voice intervened. “The universe has a way of righting itself.”

Billie stepped into the clearing, with the same supernatural calm that she always radiated. She stared down at Adam’s body as if it was nothing to her and then turned her attention to the sobbing girl.

Except she wasn’t crying anymore. Eris’ eyes had become cold and hard when she raised them at Billie.

“The universe can get fucked,” she said, her voice hoarse and broken.

Billie sighed.

“What you’re thinking about doing…”

“You don’t know what I’m thinking.”

“… will have consequences, Eris,” Billie continued, ignoring the interruption. “She was ripped from the Empty once before through magic. So was your father. If you anger it further…”

“I’m strong enough,” Eris quipped.

“You’re certainly _arrogant_ enough.”

“It’s not fair! Why is everyone else allowed to break from the script but I’m not?”

“You know damn well the answer to that.”

Eris eyes were now glimmering with barely contained rage. She lifted up her chin at Billie, as if she was defying her.

“You can’t stop me. Or you would have already.”

Billie raised both her hands up, as if accepting Eris’ argument.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

She stepped backwards and so did Sam, involuntarily. He noticed Dean, Jack and Mary did so as well, as if they were expecting Eris to let out a wave of energy. Rowena, on her part, moved even closer, and so did Talbot. Like they wanted to contemplate the miracle up close.

Castiel remained where he was, his arm still around Eris’ shoulder.

“Eris,” he muttered.

She slowly turned to look at him and Sam was certain that if someone, anyone in the world, could talk Eris out of reviving her mother, that would be Castiel.

But then again, he wouldn’t.

“Are you sure?” he asked, simply.

“I have to,” Eris said.

That was not the answer to the question Castiel had asked, but it didn’t matter. He also wasn’t going to let Meg go without a fight. He nodded.

Eris threw her hair back and took in a deep, shaky breath, as if she was holding herself back not to start crying again, and leaned over her mother’s body. She placed her mouth next to her ear and called:

“ _Megaera_.”

The wind around them picked up strength. In an instant, it went from a light breeze to a strong gust that hit them like a punch, making Rowena’s cape undulate in the air, while Sam, Dean and Mary narrowed their eyes to prevent the sand from getting in their eyes. Sam made an effort to keep watching-. He didn’t know why. Deep inside his gut, he felt as if that moment needed to be witnessed.

The wind gained in power, blowing Eris hair around her. The only ones who seemed unaffected were her, Castiel and Billie, because even Talbot lowered her head and shrunk inside of her jacket.

Eris’ eyes were black as a void.

“No. You will give her back,” she said. She didn’t seem to be speaking to anyone, or perhaps she was talking to someone Sam’s human senses couldn’t see or hear. “Because I say so! Because she is my chosen!”

Her voice now had become loud as a booming thunder. White light glowed on her hands, on her arms and for a second, for a fraction of a second, Sam thought he saw a pair of long, black wings extending from her back.

“Megaera!” she shouted. “Wake up!”

There was loud gasp, like a person underwater breaking on the surface after a long while. Meg sat up straight, blinking and moving her head around and blinking in confusion. All at once, the wind stopped blowing and Eris’ eyes returned to their normal colors.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I… I think so,” Meg gasped for air some more and looked around. “Did I miss something important?”

Instead of answering, Eris grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her in for a hug, almost at the same time as Castiel put his arms around the both of them, holding them closer against himself.

“Well, shit,” Dean muttered.

Sam turned towards him. He wondered how confused he must have been about everything that was going.

“Dean, Eris is…”

“I know who she is. I wasn’t as oblivious as Michael wanted me to be all the time,” he explained. “And he dug into my mind and my memories quite often.”

He shrugged, but Sam noticed the hard rictus on his mouth as he spoke. This experience couldn’t have been easy for him, but in typical Dean fashion, he didn’t seem willing to talk about it more than it was strictly necessary.

“I dug into his thoughts as well,” he continued.

“You did?” Sam cringed. Having been possessed by Lucifer for a far shorter period than Dean, he had an idea what a chaotic place an archangel’s mind could be and he didn’t know what spying into it for months like Dean had would be good for him. Still, he couldn’t help his curiosity. “And what did you see?”

Dean said nothing for a few seconds, still looking at the small, strange family that Castiel, Meg and Eris formed. Talbot was pushing Meg’s chair closer to them and Rowena was approaching her, obviously anxious to check on her friend’s state. Castiel planted a soft kiss on Meg’s lips before him and Eris grabbed her one by each of her arms and helped her back on her chair.

“He was terrified of her,” Dean whispered.


	21. Chapter 21

The cabin in Whitefish was silent, but that was fine by Meg. Silence was exactly what she needed after the battle. She could still feel the pain of Michael’s power going through her body, burning her from the inside out. Sometimes her hand wondered down to her stomach, to the lightning-shaped scar that it had left on her skin, her fingers tracing it with a curiosity she couldn’t help.

She remembered another demon, Asmodeous, who had also had been scarred by the power of an archangel. He’d carried that mark from meatsuit to meatsuit ever since, like it had been something imprinted on what was left of his soul rather than on his flesh. She suspected that if she ever left this body, the same thing would happen with the next one she possessed, along with whatever weaknesses she’d develop after Crowley killed her.

Though she couldn’t imagine why she would do that. She liked this body. She knew where all the buttons were.

Castiel seemed to like it, too. He traced the scar in her abdomen with his fingers first and then with his mouth before making love to her in a slow, passionate way.

“I thought I lost you again,” he whispered in her ear when Meg teased him for it.

She laughed. She laughed to hide the fact that she had been scared too, that to her it had been a second between being hit by Michael’s power, between feeling like her very essence was being set ablaze, and waking up in Eris’ arms again. But she’d had time for all sort of scary thoughts in that seconds. That this was ten times worse that Crowley’s blade, that she was being destroyed from the inside out and that there was no way that she was going to come back from that one, not again. She had been a survivor her entire existence, but when the people she cared about, the people she _loved_ , had been in danger, she hadn’t hesitated to sacrifice herself so they could live.

She hadn’t regretted it and she still didn’t now, but it was vertiginous sensation, to know just how far she was willing to go. So instead of thinking about it, she snuggled against Castiel’s skin.

“You went through all trouble to get me back, now it seems you’re stuck with me for good.”

He traced his fingers through the waves of her hair.

“I’m fine with that.”

Meg didn’t want to think that night and Castiel made sure she couldn’t. She was thankful, thankful that his touch made her feel real and not like this was some sort of dream the Empty or Billie or someone had stuck her into to keep her content, to keep her for kicking a fuss. The storm inside her quieted down under his kisses and all the questions and painful memories that she held couldn’t hurt her when her legs were tangled up with his. She had no idea what to tell him or why it was important for her that he knew that.

The words kept getting stuck in her throat whenever she tried to speak.

“Hey,” she muttered. She had her face hidden in his neck and the room was completely dark, though she figured that made little difference for his angel eyes. “I don’t… mean anything by that. I mean, we’re always going to be… I think, important for each other? You’re my daughter’s father and of course… but that doesn’t mean that you have some sort of obligation towards me or anything.”

Castiel moved away a little and rolled on the bed so they were face to face. The frown of confusion in his eyes was so comical Meg would’ve laughed if she hadn’t felt like she was drowning on words that didn’t seem enough to express what she really meant to say.

“You think I spend time with you out of… obligation?”

“No, that’s not…” Meg bit the inside of her cheek and huffed in frustration. Why did it had to be so difficult? “I have a job in Hell. I have to keep it running, make sure we don’t have any more enemies than we need. I know time there and up here runs differently, but I’m still going to be… not here every single day. So if you… don’t want to be stuck with me, if you… I don’t know, find an angel you like or something…”

Castiel tilted his head and Meg saw something she didn’t expect to see in the middle of this conversation: amusement.

“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” he told her. “You’re the only one I’ve ever really wanted to be with. Even when I… was with someone else, it was because I was alone and desperate, not because I felt anything for them. You, however… I love you, Meg.”

The most impressive part about that little speech was that he kept talking as if he hadn’t noticed the way Meg shuddered in his arms when the meaning of those words finally reached her conscious mind.

“… and I understand that you can’t always be here, but I can wait for you. I will always be waiting for you.”

“Oh,” Meg said, because if she’d had trouble speaking before, now she was too dumbfounded. She didn’t think her tongue would move ever again or that a coherent sound would ever leave her throat again.

“That said,” Castiel continued, again as if Meg wasn’t having some earth-shattering revelations right at that second, “I understand you’re not… like me. If you ever find yourself wanting… some other sort of company, something that I can’t provide, you should feel free to look for it elsewhere.”

“I don’t want anyone else either.”

It wasn’t the same thing he’d said, not exactly, but it meant the same thing. And even though she couldn’t bring herself to say it, she thought maybe he understood it anyway. At least the dumb grin that appeared in his face seemed to indicate so.

“Shut up,” Meg snapped at him, her face burning.

“I didn’t say anything.”

Meg kissed him to make sure it stayed that way. She didn’t think that conversation had conveyed everything she wanted it to, but she could still _show_ Castiel everything she meant.

Castiel responded in kind, his hands roaming down her body, moving slightly to position himself on top of her…

Meg let out a chuckle and he moved away to look at her.

“What’s so funny?”

She’d just thought about how Rowena had said that they were married and that, in a way, she wasn’t wrong. But that was a long joke she didn’t feel like explaining when they had more urgent matters to get to.

“Nothing,” she said, and pulled him down to kiss him again.

So that was one thing she didn’t have to worry about anymore. Well, she still had to worry about the Winchesters dragging her angel to whichever apocalyptic crisis they would certainly be dealing with next week or next month, but he could deal with that.

Especially if he had some back up.

Early in the morning, Meg found Eris sitting on the steps at the door, her long dark hair falling down her back freely. Meg had the impression it had grown overnight and if Eris had also grown some more despite her telling her she wouldn’t. But honestly, those were the least of her worries.

Her daughter looked up when she heard the purring of Meg’s chair as she parked it outside next to her. Eris smiled and took another sip of the cup of coffee she had between her hands.

“Did you sleep last night?” Meg asked her.

“I don’t think I need to anymore.” Eris shrugged.  “I like watching the sunrise. It makes me think of new starts. New opportunities.”

Meg got down from her chair to sit next to her daughter and grabbed a lock of her hair. It was soft and thick between her fingers and she began braiding it.

“I wish you hadn’t grown so fast. Or that I could’ve been here for more of it,” she commented. “I remember like it was two months ago that you were so little you could curl up in my lap… wait, that was actually two months ago.”

Eris laughed at the comment.

“We can always still do mother-daughter things, if you want,” she told her. “Like… I don’t know. You could tell me a story.”

She went quiet and Meg understood the invitation. She let her fingers work absentmindedly as she tried to find the words for the story she wanted to tell.

“Once upon a time, in an empire so big they lost track of how many little villages belonged to them, there was a very small one at the edge of a very dark, very deep woods. There lived a rebellious, free-spirited girl who ran through them and eat its pomegranates to escape her every day obligations. One day, she went further than she’d ever gone before and in the depths of the woods, she found a goddess.”

“Was she strong goddess?” Eris asked.

“She was a kind goddess,” Meg said, though she wasn’t sure what the difference implied. “She only asked for small offerings and, in return, she blessed the girl’s farm and family. The girl brought others to the goddess and soon she had a little following of priestesses who sang to her and danced in her clearings.”

“But it wouldn’t last.”

“One day, soldiers with vacant black eyes came with swords and torches, destroying everything in their wake. They killed the goddess’ priestess… and in some cases, they did much worse. They burned the pomegranate trees. They burned… everything.” Meg stopped and swallowed. She didn’t know why the story was affecting her so much. The braid had been finished for some time, so she gently let it fall over Eris’ shoulder. “I don’t know why they did that. I don’t know the rest of the story.”

It didn’t matter. Eris did.

“There was a priest in the village. He worshipped a new god that had come from the east, and he was jealous. He thought all the gods that weren’t his were evil and the people who worshipped them were heathens, so they had to die bloody in the name of his peaceful god.”

There was disdain in her voice as she said this and her blue and brown eyes were colder than Meg thought it was possible.

“So the priest made a deal with a powerful, yellow-eyed demon. He thought everything, even that, was justified if it spread the words and commandments of his god. He was a hypocrite and the demon took advantage of that. But even then, I don’t think the priest expected the destruction his deal caused. He just wanted to scare the people of the village into turning to the right god, but the demon brought not just blades and fire, but hellhounds too. He let them loose and the souls of everyone who was killed by them — including that of the girl who’d first found the goddess — were dragged to Hell, where they became demons themselves.”

“But… not before the girl made a deal with a goddess,” Meg intervened. “That she would, one day, become a doorway for her into this world, whatever that meant.”

Eris smirked softly.

“The girl forgot about that in Hell, just like she forgot many other things. But the goddess never did.”

Meg took in a deep, shuddering breath. She was choking, but she still found it in herself to ask:

“What took you so long?”

Eris’ smile became wider. There was sadness now in her eyes.

“What took _you_ so long to find me a father?”

“I was with several men before,” Meg confessed. “Demons, all sorts of… I was with…”

Her voice came out like a strangled whisper. She didn’t want to confess the things she’d done with Lucifer, the things she had been forced to do with Crowley. But then again, she didn’t think she needed to. Eris understood anyway.

“You didn’t love any of them. Love can’t be based on fear or the expectation of some sort of retribution. It has to be given selflessly, freely… and that’s what Castiel did for you. What he did for us. He reminded you what it’s like to love when you thought you couldn’t, and only then I could enter this world.”

“I don’t understand,” Meg said, frustrated. “What difference does that make?”

Eris leaned forwards and put a hand on Meg’s forearm.

“You don’t have to understand it,” she said, softly. “But you know it’s true.”

Meg didn’t try to deny that. She shook her head, trying to shake away her confusion. Everything Eris was saying was just too much and…

She touched her face and her fingers came back wet. She blinked several times, both surprised and relief that the pressure in her throat was coming undone. Eris slid closer to her and put her other around Meg’s shoulders, while she squeezed her forearm softly. She didn’t berate her for crying or made fun of her in any way. Meg didn’t know why she thought she would. She just wasn’t used to anyone tolerating her weakness.

But Eris did. Of course she did.

After a while, Meg managed to take a deep breath and calm herself down. Eris just kept watching her closely, smiling softly. Her eyes were also humid, but she wasn’t crying. What would a goddess have to cry for?

“Okay.” Meg sobbed one last time and forced herself to speak calmly. “So… what happens now?”

“Well… I hate to say it, but Billie was right.” Eris grimaced. “Someone is going to be really unhappy with me breaking the rules, so… you and I should lay low for a while. Dad too, if he wants to come.”

“Where are we going?”

Castiel’s deep voice startled them, but Eris immediately scooted over so he could sit with them on the step. If he noticed the fact that Meg had been crying, he didn’t comment on it. He looked odd, dressed only with his slacks and shirt. Meg imagined he’d left the jacket and the coat somewhere inside.

“Somewhere we don’t have to worry about the world for a while,” Eris said. She made a worried pause and then added. “That means, leaving Sam, Dean and Jack to fend for themselves. Are you willing to do that?”

Castiel looked at them, and then at the horizon in front of them. He seemed to be weighing all the possibilities, with that graveness that was just so him.

“They can handle being on their own for a while and I’m sure we’ll be no further than a phone call away,” he said. “Yes, I’m coming with you.”

Meg didn’t want to admit the knot in her stomach softened up at those words. Eris smirk became a full grin as she leaned against Castiel’s shoulder, still not letting go Meg, who sighed deeply, taking in the cool breeze. The sun had risen and the day was starting, a warm spring morning bathing their strange little family in its golden light.

 

* * *

 

Of course, Castiel didn’t just want to go and Meg had to make sure that things were going to run smoothly without her.

Talbot was waiting for them outside the bunker’s door when they appeared next to it. She stood up and while she didn’t bow to Meg, her posture immediately changed.

“My queen,” she said, not hiding the concern in her voice. “How are you doing?”

“It wasn’t that bad, Talbot.”

“Right, but you shouldn’t be saying that.” Talbot cringed. “I told everyone in hell you were greatly wounded and that was why you couldn’t come back right away.”

Meg laughed. She was glad she had given the mission of keeping an eye on Adam to her. Meg wasn’t patient enough to play a long con like that, but Talbot… well, she had been a conwoman and a thief while she was alive. She had a talent for those sorts of things.

“Good. And I trust you’re going to keep things running smoothly while I tie up some loose ends.”

Talbot knew better than to ask which sort of loose ends. She simply nodded instead.

Castiel opened the bunker’s door. Sam, Dean and Jack were sitting in the library and they all awkwardly turned to them when they got in. It was as if they didn’t want them to see they had been waiting for them.

“Well, would you look at the B-team?” Dean greeted them. He’d gone back to wearing his flannels and jeans and being an all-around pain in the ass the second Michael had left them.

And everything was right with the world.

“How are you doing, Dean?” Castiel asked him after giving him and Sam a quick hug each.

Dean shrugged and waved his beer bottle around, as if to signal it was all just rolling off of him.

“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” he lied. And Meg knew he lied because of course he did. “So, what do we owe the visit? I thought you guys were having some quality family time.”

“We were, but what’s family time if we don’t get to visit the annoying uncles?” Meg said, rolling her eyes.

Eris was the only one who snickered at her comment.

“We need to… borrow some weapons from your armory,” Castiel requested.

Sam and Dean blinked and looked at each other, confused.

“Okay… but what for, Cas?” Sam asked.

“We want to be prepared if we encounter some trouble in the near future.”

That confused the brothers even more. But luckily, Jack seemed to get it.

“You’re leaving.”

It wasn’t a question, more like a statement of fact made in a monotonous, unfeeling voice. Castiel’s shoulder stumped a little at that and for a second, Meg feared that he was going to change his mind after all.

She should’ve known better by then.

“The situation with Michael has been handled and they…” He made a pause to look at Meg and Eris over his shoulder. “They need me with them right now.”

A short stunned silence followed that affirmation. Dean’s eyes were wide open and his eyebrows were raised high and Jack’s expression was inscrutable. So in the end, it was Sam who reacted first.

“Yes, of course, Cas. You need to be with your family.”

“You’re my family too,” Castiel said. “Please don’t forget this. If you were to need me…”

“Cas.” Dean raised his hand to stop him from talking anymore. “We get it. It’s okay.”

Castiel breathed out in relief. Perhaps he’d been expecting, just like Meg had, that the Winchesters would kick up a fuss about this, in which case she planned to take him away no matter what they said. She was glad they were being so mature about this.

“Jack?”

The nephilim looked up, blinking slightly as if he wasn’t sure why they were referring to him. After what seemed like a second too long, his lips quirked up in a smile.

“Yes. I understand too.”

“But hey, you don’t have to leave right now,” Dean said. “Stay for dinner.”

“Umh…” Castiel looked at them again, but Eris’s eyes were already lightning up at the mention of food.

“What’s for dinner?”

“Just… some cheeseburgers, I guess?”

“Can we stay?” Eris asked, turning towards Meg. “Please, mom? Can we?”

“We would, sweetie.” Meg smirked at Dean. “But I don’t think that invitation was aimed to demons and abominations as well.”

Dean huffed, annoyed.

“Fine. I guess you can stay too.”

It was incredibly awkward, but Meg made no attempt to make it any better for anyone. The boys owed her after all. It had been her plan that had saved Dean’s stupid ass and she wasn’t expecting any form of appreciation for it, but at least they weren’t wrinkling their noses at her and Talbot’s very presence. Baby steps, she supposed.

Eris ate her burger, then Meg’s, then Castiel’s and then Talbot’s with voracity while Sam was the only one who attempted to make small talk over the dinner table.

“So, uh… yeah. Things seem to be calm right now. The angels have all apparently returned to Heaven and Rowena… well, she’s looking for a new place to start her business.”

His face lit up a little when he mentioned her. Meg had given up on trying to understand what was going on there. It was none of her business, after all.

“Oh. Should I have apologized to her for the whole… hostage situation?” Talbot asked.

“Nah. She’ll get over it.” Meg shrugged. “Besides if we start apologizing for everything we’ve done to each other in this table, it’s gonna turn very uncomfortable, very fast. Better to leave it like this.”

Talbot eyed the brothers and then turned her attention back to her beer. She seemed to have understood what Meg was trying to say, but Sam hadn’t.

“Are you…? I’m sorry to ask, but… have we actually met before? Or was just that part of the ploy?”

Dean stopped eating long enough to look at the demon with a frown, as if he could recognize the monster inside her from the dead meatsuit she had claimed for her own. Of course, that wasn’t possible. Talbot still shrunk a little under the brothers’ scrutiny for a moment, before raising her chin again.

“Can’t blame you for not realizing. I have changed a lot since you guys left me to get eaten by Hellhounds.”

Meg raised an eyebrow and exchanged a look with Castiel, but he seemed just as confused as she was. If Talbot really had history with the Winchesters, she’d never bothered to let Meg know about it.

And she did, by the way both Sam and Dean leaned back on their chairs, staring at her like they’d seen a ghost.

“Bela,” Sam said and Talbot smiled at him. There was no bitterness in it, maybe even some amusement.

“Hello, boys.”

“Hey, wait, hold on.” Dean put down his burger and pointed a finger at her. “We didn’t leave you to die, okay? You were going to kill us!”

“Like you wouldn’t have done the same to me.” Talbot rolled her eyes.

“What did I tell you?” Meg asked. “Now you’ve made it awkward.”

Eris chuckled softly between bites of her burger while Jack stared at the brothers with his head tilted.

Talbot sighed and took another swig from her beer.

“Guess it doesn’t matter much anymore,” she admitted. “To you, it has been… what, a decade? For me, it has been centuries. In fact, I hadn’t even though about you until Meg assigned me the mission of getting close to Adam. So… no hard feelings?”

“You went to Hell,” Sam pointed out. He sounded like he couldn’t believe Talbot could forgive him for letting her do that. “You turned into a demon.”

“And I’m living my best life!” Talbot said. “Turns out while being completely amoral is frowned upon among humans, it’s encouraged in Hell. It helps I have a good queen that I can serve, too.”

Meg didn’t know if she actually meant that or if she was just sucking up to her, but either way, she grinned at Talbot and at the brothers’ identical quizzical looks. It was as if they couldn’t conceive why someone would want to be a demon, or at the very least be content with being one.

She didn’t expect them to understand it either. They were the good guys, after all.

“Are you gonna finish that?” Eris asked, pointing at Sam’s half-eaten burger. She chirped happily when Sam pushed his plate towards her.

It was as good as anything to break the conversation up and change the topic.

“Where are you gonna go, exactly?” Dean asked.

“Somewhere inconspicuous,” Castiel said.

“What are you hiding from?” Jack wanted to know. “I have my powers back, I could help you…”

Eris shook her head and shoved the rest of Sam’s burger into her mouth, chewing for just a few seconds before she spoke:

“I broke the rules. One big rule, actually, but even if it had been a small one I’d be in way more trouble than you would if you were to do the same thing, just because of who I am.”

Meg was surprised that she was talking so freely about it when she’d avoided mentioning it so many times before.

“Sweetie, are you sure…?”

“It’s ok, mom.” Eris smiled at her. “They were gonna find out eventually.”

“That you’re a minor goddess?” Castiel inquired.

Well, was this dinner just full of surprises? Had he eavesdropped on them?

Castiel showed Meg a guilty smile and stretched his hand to squeeze hers.

“I’ve had my suspicions for a while,” he confessed.

“Wait, she’s not…” Dean started, turning his eyes to Eris. Then at Meg and Case while he continued to babble: “I mean, she can’t be… she’s just a different kind of Nephilim, not some sort of…”

“Goddess?” Sam repeated, frowning. They were both clearly looking for confirmation that they had misheard or that it was some sort of mistake.

Of course, they weren’t going to get it.

Eris methodically cleaned her fingers with napkin.

“You know, if you want to get technical, I am actually a demiurge.”

“Bless you,” Dean quipped.

Eris just smiled at him with a hint of sarcasm while Sam explained:

“It’s a kind of god, but… not like a creator god. A fashioner of sorts. Like… she can’t create new things, but she can… recreate them.”

“All the creatures you call gods can do that to a certain extent,” Eris pointed out. “Even the archangels could fall under that category. Jack could, too, I guess. The only difference is that I was _supposed_ to be here.”

“Billie said something similar,” Meg remembered, suddenly. “What does that…?”

Eris tore the napkin between her fingers. Meg was wondering if she was going to deign to answer the question when Eris spoke again.

“I’m a failsafe, of sorts. Same as you are. God just couldn’t handle to watch his creation end.” She made a ball with the pieces of napkin and held it in her closed fist. “So he added me to prevent that. I was supposed to come after the Apocalypse occurred and reconstruct from whatever was left.”

She opened her hand. In the middle of her palm, there laid a small paper swan that she offered up to Sam.

“But then, _someone_ decided that the Apocalypse shouldn’t happen anymore.”

“Yeah… our… bad?” Dean said, frowning again as if he wasn’t sure he was saying the right thing.

Eris looked up at him and smiled again, but this time it was different. Meg thought she saw a trace of compassion in her expression.

“If the world didn’t end, it was because He didn’t want it to end.”

“No, that’s not…” Sam started. “We stopped it.”

Eris opened her mouth as if she was about to argue that notion, but then, at the last second, she closed it again.

“Of course you did,” she said instead. “And in doing so, you kind of put me out of a job. Imagine my surprise when I got here and saw that humanity was not only still standing, but thriving. Even global warming it’s still a few years away from being irreversible and…” She stopped and turned towards Meg. “Could I just kill all the oil companies CEOs? Would that help?”

“No!” Castiel snapped immediately.

“Why not?”

“’Cause they’ll just put different dickheads in charge, honey,” Meg pointed out.

She was sure Castiel had a moral argument to make, but Eris seemed to accept the practicality of that advice with a simple nod.

“So… yeah. I don’t have to rebuild the world, because it never got destroyed,” she concluded, turning towards Sam and Dean again.

“Wait a second, wait a second!” Dean put his hand up as if he wanted to stop the slew of information that Eris was throwing at them. “We’ve seen the other world. The one that got destroyed by Michael. Where were you there?”

Eris thought about it for a moment.

“Maybe I wasn’t ever born there. Having me or a creature like me exist is hard enough that I can imagine it only happens in a handful of universes.” She made a pause and bit the inside of her cheek for a moment. “Or maybe I was, but I wasn’t powerful enough yet. It’s gonna take me a couple billions of years to get to my grandfather’s level, I think.”

“Don’t be modest,” Meg said, with a proud smile she couldn’t hold back. “I’m sure we’ll see great things from you soon enough.”

 

* * *

 

Sam handed a duffle bag full of weapons to Castiel.

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” he asked him.

Meg and Eris were standing outside of the bunker, waiting for him and talking among themselves, laughing at jokes Sam was sure no one but them could ever share. Talbot had already disappeared back to Hell and soon the strange little family was going to do the same.

Well, they weren’t going to Hell, exactly, but they were going underground for a while. Eris was convinced there would be some sort of consequence for her reviving Meg. And honestly, it was good that she thought it. Sam wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of letting Eris roam free with nothing to hold her back, not with her level of power.

Dean was even less happy about it.

“Listen, Cas, if you have any problems, I mean any… with Eris…”

“Dean,” Castiel cut him off. “I know what you’re thinking, but you don’t have to worry about it.”

“You sure?”

“Meg can be overtly permissive, but I think if we work into our strategy to present a united front on certain issues, we can settle boundaries and teach Eris about the values we wish she’ll uphold in her life.”

Sam and Dean stared at him, dumbfounded.

“I have been reading some books on parenting,” Castiel explained.

“Okay,” Sam said, because really, what else could he say? He’d tried doing the same when they’d first taken Jack in. “Umh… that’s great, Cas.”

“Yeah, awesome,” Dean said. “But seriously, don’t hesitate to call.”

“Thank you. To both of you.”

He gave each of them a hug and then turned to Jack, who was waiting quietly to the side. He had been quiet since the battle against Michael, Sam realized, but he didn’t think it was anything to be worried about. Maybe he was just a little rattled, and he’d be back to being himself soon enough.

It took him a couple of seconds to lift his arms when Castiel hugged him.

“Jack, if you need anything…”

“I’ll be fine,” Jack interrupted him. It came off a little too brusque, but he softened it with a smile. “I have my powers back. I have Sam and Dean. And Mary, too. Don’t worry about me.”

“You could come with us,” Castiel offered. “I’m sure Eris and Meg would have no problem with that.”

Jack turned towards Sam and Dean, as if he was asking for permission. Sam knew what he wanted to say, but he waited for Dean to speak first.

“Yeah, kid,” he said. “If you want to go, we’re not going to stop you.”

Jack glanced in Eris’ direction. She was staring at them with her mismatched eyed, not saying a word and unnaturally immobile. If some sort of message was exchanged between the two, it was nothing Sam could understand. But after a second, Jack turned back to Cas.

“No. I’m staying. It’s okay.”

Castiel looked at him with an expression that Sam couldn’t read and seemed like he wanted to say something else, but in the end, he patted him in the cheek with a smile. He didn’t look back as he walked away to where Eris and Meg were waiting for him, but Eris did. Her mismatched eyes were serene as she raised a hand to wave at them. Then, she put a hand on Meg’s chair and the grabbed Castiel’s arm with the other.

They were gone without a sound.

Sam, Dean and Jack stayed where they were, unsure of what to do next.

“What do you think she meant?” Sam asked after a few seconds. “About how things were going to change?”

Dean’s phone beep and he took it out.

“Who cares? It’s mom,” he said, handing it to Sam so he could see the text. “She says she might have a case.”

“You up for it?”

“Sure.” Dean shrugged. “Jack?”

Jack nodded with confidence and Sam figured that, goddess or not, Eris was not their problem to worry about for now.

“Okay, then,” he said. “We have work to do.”

 

* * *

 

They appeared on a hamlet in the middle of nowhere, near the Rocky Mountains. Meg didn’t know if Eris had chosen it at random or if there was any significance to it, but either way, it wasn’t a bad place to lay low. There was a small abandoned house at the edge of town that no one was going to ask a lot of question if they occupied and just began remodeling.

Which was exactly what they did.

Eris could’ve snapped her fingers and make all the rubble and debris disappear, but Castiel practically dared her to do it with her own hands. Perhaps because he was trying to inculcate the ethics of hard work on her or whatever. She just sat on her chair with a magazine open on her lap and waited for Eris to get bored with that exercise in futility.

It took around an hour and a half.

“Dad, can I have some lemonade?”

“Umh… I don’t think we have lemons in the house.”

“You should go get some, then,” Meg said, passing the page. Her smirk met Castiel’s glare, but his irritation didn’t last long.

“Very well,” Castiel said, with a sigh. “I will be back soon.”

As soon as he was out of the door, Eris snapped her fingers to clear all the dust and grabbed some wooden planks to fashion herself a small seat next to Meg’s chair.

“I think he’s been reading too much of Sam’s parenting books,” she commented.

Meg chuckled and closed the magazine.

“He just wants to make sure you have the right tools to decide what you’re going to do next.”

Eris thought about this for a moment.

“Well, I like this world. It has some good things, like families and music and froyo. I really like froyo,” Eris said. “You have your basic flavors and then you can add whatever toppings you want to it and just… make it your own. A unique creation every time. And there are so many combinations I haven’t tried yet… and like, if I have to remake the world, I have no guarantee humans will invent froyo again.”

Meg chuckled. Eris was never going to stop surprising her. Her daughter was an indestructible being of incredible powers beyond what anyone could grasp. And she just happened to be addicted to froyo.

And as far as gods went, Meg was happy she had pledged a vow to this one.

As if Eris had heard her thoughts, she stretched a hand and grabbed Meg’s.

“Besides, I wasn’t supposed to bring anything back, just work with was already here. So I’ve already gone off script,” she said. “I guess I’m just going to do what everyone else has been doing.”

“And what is that?”

Eris lifted her head and grinned. Meg felt herself brimming with pride at her next words:

“Whatever I want.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
